MAS115: Mathematical Investigation Skills, 2021-2022
This is the 2021-2022 course web page for MAS115: Mathematical Investigation Skills, which will be updated as the module progresses. For official course information, including timetabling and syllabus, please consult the list of current modules.
Course information
MAS115 is a 20-credit, year-long module.
Over the year you will develop important skills needed to investigate and report on mathematical problems.
These skills will be useful during your degree and beyond; such transferable skills are very useful in the workplace and valued by employers.
A course information sheet is below.
- MAS115 course information: PDF, HTML
Accessing support
As well as asking demonstrators in the computer classes, you can access support for MAS115 by posting questions on the online discussion board or by attending an office hour, as detailed below.
Discussion board
There is an online discussion board for MAS115.
This is a forum for MAS115 students to use to ask and answer (anonymously, if preferred) questions on the material for the course.
Your lecturers will look at it too and be notified of new posts.
The board can be found in Blackboard so log-in with your usual username and password when asked.
Office hours
Alex Fletcher has an online office hour at 1pm on Tuesdays.
Sam Marsh has an online office hour at 2pm on Fridays.
To book appointment slots for either of these office hours, please use the links provided in Blackboard. If these times cause difficulties, e.g. due to a timetable clash, please email Alex or Sam directly (our contact details can be found at the bottom of this page).
Course materials
The course materials, by lecturer, are below.
Python (Alex Fletcher)
The materials for the Python lectures and labs from Semester 1 will be below.
| Week |
Lectures |
Computer labs |
Exercise solutions |
Homework solutions |
| 1 |
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Lab sheet: PDF, HTML |
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Presentation (Sam Marsh)
The materials for the lectures and labs on presentation from Semester 1 are below. Source (.tex) files are provided for accessibility reasons.
| Week |
Lectures |
Computer labs |
My lab attempts |
Model homework |
Projects
Mini-projects
The Semester 1 mini-project will be released in Week 6 of Semester 1.
Group projects
The Semester 1 group project will be released in Week 11 of Semester 1.
Remember: you must participate satisfactorily in all group projects to pass the module.
Below is guidance on uploading zip files to the upload system.
Upload system
The project upload system can be found at the link below. You should use your standard university username, and you will have been emailed a password. If you are trying to connect from a computer not on the University's network (that is, not using a University PC or University Wifi), then you will need to set up a VPN connection. If you have trouble establishing a VPN connection, see this advice.
Troubleshooting VPN connections
Setting up a VPN can sometimes cause issues. It is worth using Google to see if you can find a video which shows you how to do it on your operating system (e.g. Windows 10). There are also some useful small articles on the IT Services Knowledgebase which you can access by logging into MUSE, then selecting 'IT Service Desk (Self Service)' under 'View all services'. Type VPN in the search box, and look for relevant posts.
If the above advice doesn't get you anywhere, please post on the discussion board.
Extras
We will add here things related to the course that are useful or interesting.
General materials
- The code.org website, an excellent resource for furthering programming skills. (show video)
Python materials
- Alternative to Google Colab: If you cannot use Google Colab for our Python computer classes, for example due to the China firewall, then instead you can download and install Python on your own computer for free.
- We suggest you do this by installing the Anaconda distribution of Python (version 3.8), which includes Jupyter
Notebook and Spyder.
- To install Anaconda, click on this link and scroll down to "Anaconda Installers", choosing the correct installer for your operating system.
- Having installed Anaconda, we suggest you use Spyder to write and edit Python programs. On the worksheets, code to be typed into Spyder's IPython console, rather than being part of a program, is indicated by >>>. Programs (no >>>) are typed in the editor rather than in the console; you can open a new file by typing
Ctrl+N or via the File menu.
- If you have any questions about installing Python or using Spyder, please ask these on the discussion board.
- Think Python, an introduction to Python programming for beginners, available free online.
LaTeX
- Download and install MiKTeX for Windows at home for free: MiKTeX.org.
- Download and install MacTeX for Macs at home for free: tug.org/mactex. (show instructions)
We think this is the appropriate thing to download on Macs, and hopefully the instructions are straightforward, but as we don't own Macs, we are unable to test this. Please post any problems or advice on the discussion board as it will help others.
- Problems installing MiKTeX on Windows 7, 8 or 10? (show tips)
If you've been getting an error after installing MiKTeX on a Windows 7, 8 or 10 machine, try the following.
- Ensure TeXworks is closed.
- Download TeXmaker.
- Open any .tex file that you know works (or make a very basic one).
- Process it by pressing the blue arrow next to 'Quick build'.
- Hopefully, the file will be processed OK. Change something in the document and re-run to make sure it's working.
- You can either now use TeXmaker as your standard text editor, or try TeXworks again... you may find the latter now works too!
If you continue to have problems, please post on the discussion board.
- Download and install TeXmaker for free.
- Download and install Geogebra for free.
- LaTeX templates:
- Problems with the \includegraphics command? (show)
If you are struggling to get graphics to display with the \includegraphics command on the University's managed desktop PCs, try adding
\graphicspath{{./}}
to your preamble. This makes sure that the computer looks in the correct directory.
- Get rid of extra space when including Geogebra PDFs. (show instructions)
When exporting PDF images from Geogebra, sometimes the software creates extra white space above and below the image. If you open the PDF file you will see that what's happened is the image has been put in the middle of an A4 page; including this PDF in a LaTeX document will unwanted blank space at the top and bottom.
The way I've fixed this issue is to specify a bounding box to crop the image. To do this, simply change the
\includegraphics{...} command to \includegraphics[bb=0 180 575 625]{...}
That's worked for me, but you may find you need to change the numbers. The first two correspond to $x$ and $y$-coordinates for the lower-left corner of the bounding box, and the second two correspond to uper-right corner.
- The Higher and Lower game for use in the Week 5 computer session.
- Learn more about about LaTeX:
HTML and web design
- This page's CSS file.
- The w3schools page on navigation bars, as recommended in the Week 9 lab.
- The HTML Dog HTML and CSS tutorials, as recommended in the Week 9 lab.
- The Barelyfitz tutorial on CSS positioning, as recommended in the Week 9 lab.
- The script for enabling Mathjax in HTML pages, to do things like $\Gamma(x)\equiv \lim_{x\to 0}\prod_{v=0}^{n-1}\frac{n!\;n^{x-1}}{x+v}$. (show code)
Copy and paste the code below into the head of your HTML document.
<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-chtml.js">
</script>
<script>
window.MathJax = {
tex: {
inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
}
};
</script>
- Read about the Windows Command Prompt.
- Convert computer code to safe HTML.
- The script for enabling Google Prettify in HTML pages. (show code)
Copy and paste the below just above the pre and code tags.
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/google/code-prettify@master/loader/run_prettify.js"></script>
Change the pre tag to
<pre class="prettyprint linenums">
and click refresh.
