SIMIODE

10-001-T-TilingHallway

12 Sep 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

Students will investigate difference equations through the context of tiling hallways. Students will observe patterns in the tiling which will lead to a difference equation model. Solutions will be calculated by iteration.  Then students will be introduced to the concept of the shift...

1-084-T-GoingViral

31 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

Students employ randomization in order to create a simulation of the spread of a viral disease in a population (the classroom).  Students then use qualitative analysis of the expected behavior of the virus to devise a logistic differential equation.  Finally, students solve the...

3-064-T-GearTrain

31 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

In this scenario students will model an input-output mechanical system of gears with a second order, non-homogeneous, ordinary differential equation with constant coefficients. The model incorporates friction and moments of inertia of the gear train components. Students should have some...

1-083-T-FallingMeteorites

24 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

After introducing the solution to the ordinary differential equation which models a falling object with drag (first-order, non-linear, separable), students will consider generalizing the model to a falling and disintegrating meteorite. The focus is on creative identification of factors. Students...

9-010-T-TravelingWaves

21 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

In this scenario, students will be taken through a traveling wave analysis of a porous medium model. While the starting point is a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) model, after a change of variables, students are led quickly to an ordinary differential equation (ODE) model. Students...

3-011-T-EulerBallThrowing

19 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

If a tennis ball of mass $m$ is thrown through the air it will eventually hit the ground due to gravity. If you can throw a tennis ball 12 meters/second (about 26.8 mph) how far can you throw it; meaning how far away from you can you make it land? Assume that when the ball leaves your hand it...

1-068-T-WaterBottleCooling

14 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

This modeling scenario involves Newton's Law of Cooling and should be appropriate in the first week or even the first day of an introductory differential equations course. The scenario uses an Inquiry Based Learning approach to walk the students through the creation and understanding of a...

3-150-T-ItsABlastFurnace

13 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

This project uses the steady-state heat equation to model the temperature distribution in an industrial furnace used for metal production, for example, a blast furnace.The heat flow is assumed to be steady-state, so that only an elementary ordinary differential equation (ODE) is needed, and...

1-076-T-ClimateBifurcation

08 Aug 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

In this paper we present (for educational purposes) simple zero and one dimensional models for the mean temperature of the Earth. These models can exhibit bifurcations from the present Earth climate to an ice age or a ``Venus type of climate.'' The models are accompanied by Matlab...

7-011-Text-T-CoupledSystemLaplace

31 Mar 2019 | Technique Narratives

Differential equations and Laplace transforms are an integral part of control problems in engineering systems. However a clear explanation of the relationship of Laplace transforms with the differential equation formalism is difficult to find for coupled differential equations. Here we describe...

1-125-T-DiceyPopulations

04 Mar 2019 | Modeling Scenarios

We offer students an opportunity to generate unique data for their team on a death and immigration model using 12 and 20 sided dice and then pass on the data to another student team for analysis with a model they built. The key is to recover the parameters and try to explain how the simulation...