ME122F? Schedule of classes and activities

ALERT! Under construction: Last update: 26 March 2005 -- MarkCutkosky (adapted from ScheduleME21N)

30 March, 5 Apr, 7 Apr, 12 Apr, 14 Apr, 19 Apr, 21 Apr, 26 Apr, 28 Apr, 3 May, 5 May, 10 May, 12 May, 17 May, 19 May (Sardegna), 24 May, 26 May, 31 May, 2 June (holiday)
Class Times: T, Th | 17:00-18:30 - at Stanford Florence Campus unless noted otherwise
Field Trips: Pisa: 8 April, Duomo: 21 April, Museo Scienza: 28 April?, Vinci: May 13

Wed 30 March

  • Orientation and explanation of course goals, syllabus, plans

Tues 5 April

  • Wiki Introduction and registration requirements
  • Intro. to stability and structures made from blocks. Corbelled arches from pre-antiquity
    • Q: How far can a corbelled arch span? What is the limit? Why?
  • Readings and Assignments:
    • For Thursday: get registered in TWiki and start notebooks
    • For April 7: skim p 171-197 of Gordon (in course reader)
    • For April 12: read p 36-37, 46-59 of Gordon (in course reader); read p 225-242 of Salvadori (in course reader).
    • For 14: read Cha 1-6 of Brunelleschi's Dome
(For more details see: IntroductoryClassNotes122F)

Thurs 7 April

  • Resolve any twiki issues + add people to the mailing list (me122f-class@lists.stanford.edu)
  • La Torre Pendente: pre-Renaissance design, issues of technology, stability and impending collapse.
  • NOVA video & discussion (see LeaningTowerTapeNotes)
  • "i calcoli statici"
    • Q: What was state of the art in the 1200s?
    • Q: What did they know and what could they do about it?
  • See SecondClassNotesApr7 for details!
  • Assignments:

Fri 8 April

  • Field trip to Pisa and la Torre Pendente. It's one thing to read about the tower & the engineering problems and challenges and another to see them.
  • We can take the 08:27 train to Pisa and then walk or take a bus to the Piazza dei Miracoli. The duomo and baptistry are also worth visiting with fine sculptures by Giovanni Pisano. On way back, we should walk through the Piazza dei Cavalieri and admire Vasari's work on the Scuola Normale, cross the Arno and maybe see a few other things like the Roman boats...
  • Train = 5 Euro each way; tower = 15 Euro. Online "prenotazione" is unfortunately not "disponibile" at present.

Tues 12 April

Thurs 14 April

Tues 19 April

Thurs 21 April

MOVED TO... Tour the cupola del duomo and Museo del'Opera del Duomo. If nobody is in the Polisci-43P (Morlino) course, we can meet at ~4:00pm and have plenty time for both. I believe cost is 6 Euros for each.

Tues 26 April

  • GalileoTopics and empirical scaling laws for wooden machine design
  • Read: Gordon pages Gordon pages 46-59, 229-231 and 240-244

Thurs 28 April

  • Check out ScalingResultsME122F
  • PreparedDiscussions, DiscussionTopicsMeetings
    • the evolution from Tradesman to Engineer to Philosopher and Scientist
    • Domes (Pantheon, Santa Maria del Fiore, St. Peters)
    • Dome construction details (herringbone brick & etc.)
  • Start to think about final projects
  • Begin machine design: Part I
  • Finish readings in Gordon
  • Case study: Brunelleschi's castello as an example of beam theory and machine scaling issues.
  • Short assignment: Scavenger Hunt for materials (due 3 May)

MOVED TO... Ready to tour the Museo di Storia della Scienza any time after this point

Tues 3 May

Thurs 5 May

Tues 10 May

Thurs 12 May

MOVED TO... Vinci field trip: Set for afternoon of 13 May (Friday), after the Camilla Banes walking tour in the morning. We will rent a bus, spend a couple hours there, and return in late afternoon. The museum has a terrific collection of models and displays. Vinci is a nice, small, Tuscan hill town.

Tues 17 May

  • Energy sources and efficiency for Renaissance machines
  • Gears: classical, Renaissance, modern and other transmission concepts (if time permits)
  • Pre-meetings on final projects
  • Machine design Part V
  • Pre-meetings on final projects

Thurs 19 May

  • Bing trip to Sardegna -- reschedule class as needed.

Tues 24 May

IntellectualPropertyandRelatedTopicsME122F
  • Revisiting social and political issues
  • Intellectual property and the management of work
  • Ergonomics, project planning

Thurs 26 May

  • Aesthetic and philosophical issues (le machine impossibile, anthropomorphic design, ...)
  • The role of visualizations of machines, perspective drawings, notebooks (vs. drafting or CAD).

Tues 31 May

  • Presentations of final projects

Thurs 2 June

  • Holiday

Final documents

  • Writeups of final projects due before June 7

There is an Art show on June 8. We've been asked to show our machine at the same time!

-- MarkCutkosky - 5 Apr 2005

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