Laboratory experiments are being integrated into the undergraduate math curriculum. In particular, two courses are being affected - Applied Computational Mathematics and Fourier Series and PDEs - and changes are being made in other undergraduate courses on mathematical modeling, dynamical systems, and control. For example, 1) students are able to take experimental data which they have collected themselves and program and implement the routines to analyze it using discrete Fourier transforms; 2) students who have solved a PDE by separation of variables can see their solutions evolve in time and understand better the physical phenomena the equations describe; 3) students are able to compare separation of variables solutions of such problems as the Euler-Bernoulli beam and the vibrating drum head to experimental data.
