One of our main course goals is the group project, which is taken from an Active Physics Challenge. The challenge is to put together a sound, light, and harmonic motion show.

The goals for session 1 include learning something about harmonic motion, specifically:

1. Learning about a pendulum
   
   
2. Learning about a mass on a spring, and seeing how the motion of the pendulum is very similar to that of the mass on a spring.
   
   
3. Looking at how position, velocity, and acceleration are related in simple harmonic motion.

Resources to investigate the above include:

• The harmonic motion lab activity and the accompanying simulations
  
  
• Phet simulations on-line (google "Phet Simulations"). There's a nice one about masses and springs.
  
  
• ActivPhysics On-line, activities 9.1, 9.2, 9.10, and 9.11. To find these go to the MasteringPhysics site (masteringphysics.com) and look for the link to ActivPhysics towards the bottom of the page. Choose "Applications of Newton's Laws" from the pull-down menu and you should then be able to find the activities in section 9. Note that some parts of activities 9.1 and 9.2 talk about taking derivatives - feel free to skip over those parts.
  
  
• The on-line course notes.