Team Project Kickoff

GT 1000 · Lecture 6

Andrew J. Steinmetz

2026-10-02

Due dates

What	When	Points
Team Project Contract	Oct. 9, 11:59 PM ET	50 (5%) · Team Project
Homework in LaTeX	Oct. 16, 11:59 PM ET	50 (5%) · Academic Planning
Online Profile	Oct. 23, 11:59 PM ET	75 (7.5%) · Career Readiness
Team Project Slides and Presentation	Slides Nov. 6; talk Nov. 6 or Nov. 13	100 + 100 (20%) · Team Project

The project in one slide

• Teams of four. You form them today.
• Pick a track. Visit a research group (Track A) or take your own measurements (Track B).
• Do it first-hand. Over the next four weeks.
• Teach the class. A 15-minute presentation on Nov. 6 or Nov. 13.

You can’t do this project from your desk. The evidence of what you did (your photos, your data, your conversations) is the core of your talk.

Full details are on the Team Project page: ../assignments/team-project.qmd. This project supports the course learning outcome on leading and participating in collaborative projects. It also previews the undergraduate research lecture on Nov. 20. Why a team: research groups divide the work, and most hard problems in group projects are people problems (who does what, when you meet, what happens when someone goes quiet). Better to practice that now.

Track A: Inside a Physics Lab

Find a research group, visit, and interview the people who do the work.

• Where: School of Physics preferred. Elsewhere is fine if the work relates to physics.
• Experimental group: tour the lab; watch a measurement if you can.
• Theory or computation: attend a research group meeting instead.
• Interview the PI and, if possible, a grad student or undergraduate researcher.

Finding a group is your team’s job. Start emailing this week; professors can take a week to reply.

Groups outside the School of Physics need a short explanation of the physics connection in the contract, and my approval. The talk covers the research question, how the group answers it, the people and their paths, and how a first-year can get involved.

Finding a group: School of Physics research pages and faculty profiles, recent seminar and colloquium speakers on the events calendar, upper-year students, the Team Leader, and the professors teaching their classes. Read the group’s website and one accessible article before emailing. The Physics@Tech talks on Oct. 16, 23, and 30 (tentative) are another way to meet faculty. Encourage teams to spread out across research areas.

Writing the email

Subject: GT 1000 first-years: request to visit your lab

Dear Professor Lastname,

We are four first-year Physics majors in GT 1000. For a class project, we would like to learn how your group studies [topic]. We read [article or news story] and were curious about [one specific thing].

Could we visit the lab (or sit in on a group meeting) and interview you for about 30 minutes? We are free [two or three times] between Oct. 12 and Oct. 30.

Thank you for considering it,
[Names]

• Short. Fits on a phone screen.
• Specific. Shows you read something.
• Easy to say yes to. Clear ask, clear times.
• Professional. GT email, no slang.
• Follow up politely after about a week.
• Thank them within a day or two of the visit.

This is the same skill as emailing a professor about undergraduate research later. Point out that the Liaison sends the email but the whole team should read it first.

Track B: Measure Tech

Measure one physical quantity two independent ways, then compare.

Experiment	Method 1	Method 2
Height of Tech Tower (or Howey)	Phone barometer, bottom vs. top	Shadows and trigonometry, or a pendulum
Local g	Long pendulum in a stairwell	Timed drop with an acoustic stopwatch
Radius of the Earth	“Two sunsets”: ground, then up a tall building	Angle of the horizon from a rooftop
Speed of sound	Echo off a large building wall	Two phones over a measured distance

Or propose your own in your contract. Free phone apps such as phyphox turn your phone into a lab instrument (Staacks et al. 2018).

Apparatus can be built at the Montgomery Machining Mall or the Invention Studio. Safety: public spaces only, follow building rules for roofs and stairwells, never drop anything where people walk. The two appendix slides (Tech Tower barometer example, whether two methods agree) are for Track B teams to come back to.

Roles

Every member has a primary role, and every member presents.

Track A: Inside a Physics Lab	Track B: Measure Tech
Liaison — outreach, scheduling, thank-you note	Project Manager — schedule, internal deadlines
Interview Lead — prepares and leads the questions	Lead Experimentalist — designs and runs measurements
Science Lead — background; explains the physics	Data Analyst — uncertainties, plots, comparison
Media and Deck Lead — photos, slides	Communications Lead — photos, video, slides

Roles divide the work. They do not excuse anyone from the rest of it.

Evidence of your work

1. Your own dated photos or video of your team doing the work. Ask before photographing people or equipment in a lab.
2. A signed Verification Form: from your lab host (Track A), or from the Team Leader after watching one data-collection session (Track B). It goes on the last slide.
3. A check-in with the Team Leader by Oct. 23: photos, notes or raw data, and progress against your contract.

Generative AI is strongly discouraged in this course, and it can’t visit a lab or take your data. Anything you present as your experience must actually be your experience.

Track B teams: schedule the observed session with Elouan early; one Team Leader, several teams. The Verification Form is still being written; it will be posted on the Team Project page.

Presenting as a team

• 15 minutes: about 12 talking, 3 for questions. Everyone presents; questions can go to anyone.
• 10–15 content slides, plus title, references, and the Verification Form. All slides are due Nov. 6.
• Rehearse together, out loud, with a timer, and give each other specific feedback (Georgia Institute of Technology, n.d.).
• Raise problems early. Talk to the teammate first, then the Team Leader or me, before the deadline.

Slides (100)	Presentation (100)
Content 30 · Evidence 30 · Organization 15 · Design 15 · Sources 10	Delivery 30 · Teamwork 20 · Questions 20 · Timing 15 · Check-in 15

The Team Project Contract

Due Oct. 9, 11:59 PM ET · Team Project Contract

• Names and GT emails
• Track and topic (Track A: first choice + backups; Track B: quantity + two methods)
• Roles and tasks
• Meetings, including a rehearsal

• Communication channel and response time
• Internal deadlines, including the Oct. 23 check-in
• Backup plan
• Conflict resolution
• Everyone’s signature and date

A contract settles who does what now, while everyone still gets along.

Timeline

Date	Milestone
Oct. 2	Today: teams formed. Track A teams start emailing.
Oct. 9	Contract due
Oct. 12–30	Visits and interviews, or data collection
Oct. 23	Team Leader check-in done
Nov. 6	All slides due; Teams 1–2 present
Nov. 13	Teams 3–4 present

Five weeks total. Track A teams that haven’t heard back from their first choice by about Oct. 12 should move to a backup.

Today: form your team

1. Form a team of four and pick a team name.
2. Swap GT emails and set up a group chat.
3. Choose a tentative track. Track A: list three candidate groups from the School of Physics research pages. Track B: pick an experiment and sketch both methods.
4. Assign primary roles.
5. Put your first in-person meeting on the calendar.

Before you leave: tell the Team Leader your team name, members, and tentative track.

Decide before class whether teams self-select or are assigned. Try to end up with no more than two teams on the same Track B experiment, and steer Track A teams toward different research areas. Collect team names and tracks on the way out (Team Leader) to set the presentation order (Teams 1-2 on Nov. 6, Teams 3-4 on Nov. 13).

References

Georgia Institute of Technology. n.d. “Group Presentations.” In GT 1000 First-Year Seminar Textbook. Georgia Institute of Technology. https://sites.gatech.edu/gt1000-textbook/communication-skills/group-presentations/.

Staacks, Sebastian, Simon Hütz, Heidrun Heinke, and Christoph Stampfer. 2018. “Advanced Tools for Smartphone-Based Experiments: Phyphox.” Physics Education 53 (4): 045009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/aac05e.

Appendix: how tall is Tech Tower?

Air pressure drops as you go up, because there is less air above you:

\[\Delta P = \rho_{\text{air}} \, g \, \Delta h \quad\Rightarrow\quad \Delta h = \frac{\Delta P}{\rho_{\text{air}} \, g}\]

With \(\rho_{\text{air}} \approx 1.2~\text{kg/m}^3\), that is about 12 Pa (0.12 hPa) per meter. Phone barometers can resolve changes this small.

• Repeat the measurement several times. How much do the results scatter?
• What else changes the pressure while you walk up the stairs? (Weather? Air conditioning?)
• Then measure the height a second, independent way and compare.

1.2 kg/m^3 times 9.8 m/s^2 is about 11.8 Pa per meter. Air density depends on temperature and humidity, which is a good source-of-error discussion. Don’t give the actual height of the tower; that’s what they’re measuring.

Appendix: do your two methods agree?

Report each result as a value with an uncertainty: \(h = 30 \pm 2~\text{m}\).

• Uncertainty comes from repeating the measurement and looking at the spread, and from the limits of your instruments.
• Two results agree if their difference is about the size of their combined uncertainty or smaller.
• If they don’t agree, that is not a failure. It is the most interesting part of your talk: what did one method miss?

A careful “our methods disagree, and here is why” beats a suspiciously perfect match.

The 30 +/- 2 m is a made-up example of the format, not the real height. Rule of thumb for the “combined uncertainty”: add the two uncertainties in quadrature. They will see this formally in PHYS 2211/2231 lab.