WP@elab: 1st Training Action Rio de Janeiro

General Information

Our project encompasses Training Actions to enable teachers and trainees for the future dissemination of pendulums and experiments. Four training sessions will take place at Santiago do Chile, Rio Janeiro, Ciudad de Panama and Bogotá, one per each South American country and 4 transnational meetings open to all the educational institutions in each country (Concepcion, Ilhéus- Bahia, Ciudad de Panama and Bogotá).

The aim of the first 4 referred training actions (February and March 2020) relates to (i) the setup and calibration of the pendulums, including the update of the webportal (ii) basic operation and data analysis and (iii) use of the platform. The later will encompass both pedagogical training and service maintenance.

We expect to have teachers and future trainers from each LA institution per country on such actions. They should be able to train in the future the local responsible for the secondary pendulums and people involved on the dissemination centers. It is expected to open this local training to waiver attendants that could participate later on the use or deployment of the secondary pendulums or assist later training actions, such as the MOOC.

On the project those training actions will be performed by the European partners.

Local infrastructure

The premises were these learning activities will take place will be in room 350L, buildingCardeal Leme – PUC-Rio. They shall be equipped with a data-show and internet access.

Hopefully it will be close to the local pendulum previously installed.

It is expected that each attendee should carry his/her own laptop with (i) Java 8, (ii) MS Excel or similar spreadsheet program (iii) Putty or any other console and (iv) VLC installed. Optionally any other high-level interpreted, general-purpose programming language is welcome if mastered by the trainee.

Local organizers will provide Wi-Fi access to the Internet.

Sessions will start at 9h30 and adjourn by 17h with lunch break by 13h. Registration will take place by 9h00 on Monday (training) and Thursday (joint session).

Day 1– Unpacking, Horácio Fernandes

Location
350L, building Cardenal Leme – PUC Rio
Schedule 
09h-09h30m Registration
09h30m-12h30m Session
12h30m-14h00m Lunch
14h00m-17h00m Session

Pendulum assembly in its different formats (standalone experiment and wall fixed structure); Important points to retain on the construction and wall structure types.

Verification of mounting correctness; Calibration process and validation of the final accuracy attained.

The secondary pendulums deployment according to the definition of regional strategies.

Day 2 – Calculus, (Pavel Kuriscak)

Location
350L, building Cardenal Leme – PUC Rio
Schedule 
09h30m-12h30m Session
12h30m-14h00m Lunch
14h00m-17h00m Session

The data collected by the world pendulums allows a variety of physical understanding of the underlying mechanics. By a suitable use of spreadsheets we can infer a great number of learning topics exploring its potential.

In this action, MSExcel will be used to:

Validate the correct settings and calibration of the experiment;

Implement a numerical calculation of the motion equations, by using a simple finite element analysis and deriving the mechanical behavior of the pendulum;

Compute the energy balance of the bob and perform its experimental validation

Derive by dimensional analysis the pendulum period and establish all the movement constants by experimentation.

Day 3 – Establishing the virtual connection (Rui Neto)

Location
350L, building Cardenal Leme – PUC Rio
Schedule 
09h30m-12h30m Session
12h30m-14h00m Lunch
14h00m-17h00m Session

Overview of e-lab’s architecture.

Existing Infrastructure. It will be important to take a look at the current framework based on Linux servers, even if not in detail. This will be the basis to understand some of the different deploy configuration and other basic requirements for deploying a pendulum.

How to deploy an experiment.

    • Creating and configuring the XML files
    • Understanding its correlation with the User Interface
    • Building and running
    • Entering into production

It is expected that each attendee should carry his/her own laptop with (i) Java 8, (ii) Notepad++ or a similar IDE (iii) Putty or a similar console for ssh and (iv) VLC installed. Some know-how on XML (structure and writing) is important, or at the very least experience with similar Markup

Languages. Some know-how on Linux based systems and Java is useful.

Local organizers must provide Wi-Fi access to the Internet with no restriction to the following ports (check firewall restrictions and others): 8000 to 8010; 9000 to 9010; 25000 to 25010.

Day 4 – Exploring the constellation

(Morning: Joint session, Afternoon: Francesc Alpiste)

Location
350L, building Cardenal Leme – PUC Rio
Schedule 
09h30m-12h30m Session
12h30m-14h00m Lunch
14h00m-17h00m Session

Morning: Science Dissemination Centers (SDCs) presentations by each LA partners highlighting the secondary pendulums infrastructure and including both activities already performed and forecasted. [Activity performed in conjunction with the management team]

Afternoon: Discussion about the secondary pendulums infrastructure implementation according to their relative physics studies. Implications on the strategy presented by each LA partners for the Science Dissemination Centers.

The spread of pendulums will allow a validation of the earth’s gravity model: by using e-lab to retrieve data from different latitudes it can be inferred the behavior of such variation; the aim of this studies is to demonstrate that, even by adding consecutive additional terms, the physics model will always lack precision even adding the main ones like earth rotation and poles flatness.

Altitude, tidal effects and geometric parameters of the pendulums shall be consider as well.

Discussion about the implementations in other LMS such as GRAASP.

Day 5 – Reaching the world

(Frederic Schwander, Horácio Fernandes)

Location
350L, building Cardenal Leme – PUC Rio
Schedule 
09h30m-12h30m Session
12h30m-14h00m Lunch
14h00m-17h00m Session

Detailed discussion about the MOOC infrastructure and Open edX architecture; Pedagogical contents and their alignment within the project;

The course completion in different languages. Cohorts and practical content distribution. Autonomous learning versus traditional assessment.

Definition of common dates for a joint execution of the MOOC: (i) The private test in Panama and batch enrollment of future trainers; (ii) Course live execution in each LA country (iii) local tutors.