This project will support the expansion and upgrading of the current undergraduate computer laboratory, so that each student in the lab will be able to use a modern symbolic-numerical- graphical system, and directly connect to the University computer system or the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center. It is being funded under the Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) Program, which has the goal of supporting projects to develop new or improved instrument-based undergraduate laboratory courses in science, mathematics, or engineering. The Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program provides matching support for the instrumentation necessary to implement undergraduate instructional improvements at U.S. colleges and universities. In particular, the main objective of this project is to increase the scope, relevance and applicability of the mathematical modelling course by adding a laboratory component in which the students learn to use the most modern computer techniques available to them for application to assigned projects and problems. The laboratory work will consist of independent work on tutorials with the help of a laboratory assistant, and students will be encouraged to do simple motivating experiments in the lab before the mathematical analysis techniques are presented in class.
