MECH&AE 169A
Introduction to Mechanical Vibrations
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Requisites: courses 96, 102, 107. Fundamentals of vibration theory and applications. Free, forced, and transient vibration of one and two degrees of freedom systems, including damping. Normal modes, coupling, and normal coordinates. Vibration isolation devices, vibrations of continuous systems. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - As a person, professor Chang is the nicest professor I've had yet at UCLA. I wish I liked his teaching style as much as I like him as a person. He reads exclusively of off powerpoint slides during his lectures and rarely does examples in class. There is no required homework to turn in but exercise problems are assigned each week. The exam problems are easier than the homework problems. There is also a 5-minute presentation in which you describe a journal paper related to mechanical vibrations. There is also an extra credit opportunity to write an Android/IOS app worth 15% of your grade.
Fall 2019 - As a person, professor Chang is the nicest professor I've had yet at UCLA. I wish I liked his teaching style as much as I like him as a person. He reads exclusively of off powerpoint slides during his lectures and rarely does examples in class. There is no required homework to turn in but exercise problems are assigned each week. The exam problems are easier than the homework problems. There is also a 5-minute presentation in which you describe a journal paper related to mechanical vibrations. There is also an extra credit opportunity to write an Android/IOS app worth 15% of your grade.
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Most Helpful Review
A real nice guy and not a tough grader on midterms/finals. He really works with you on these and will give you very close to full credit if you just put down your procedure for the problem rather than actually solving it. Do NOT, I say, DO NOT try to follow the textbook over the class notes. You will pay for it if you do (not very much, thankfully he doesn't grade homework too harshly either). I pretty much followed the textbook the entire time in trying to do the homework, as I do in most classes, and, while studying for the final, it quickly became apparent that the methods outlined in the class notes were usually more effective and less confusing than those in the text. Not to say that the textbook leads you astray but you'll probably have an easier time of it if you just follow his procedure (especially for generalized forcing functions). All in all, to have not had a terrible experience in a 4-6pm class on vibrations is amazing enough for me to consider this guy a good teacher.
A real nice guy and not a tough grader on midterms/finals. He really works with you on these and will give you very close to full credit if you just put down your procedure for the problem rather than actually solving it. Do NOT, I say, DO NOT try to follow the textbook over the class notes. You will pay for it if you do (not very much, thankfully he doesn't grade homework too harshly either). I pretty much followed the textbook the entire time in trying to do the homework, as I do in most classes, and, while studying for the final, it quickly became apparent that the methods outlined in the class notes were usually more effective and less confusing than those in the text. Not to say that the textbook leads you astray but you'll probably have an easier time of it if you just follow his procedure (especially for generalized forcing functions). All in all, to have not had a terrible experience in a 4-6pm class on vibrations is amazing enough for me to consider this guy a good teacher.
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