Introduction

This is a work in progress and more activities will be added in the future. Check back later for a more tutorials

Please feel free to copy these documents and modify them according to your needs. I encourage you to make use of these in your classes.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Organization of This Document

This document contains a series of links to interactive SageMath worksheets and Jupyter notebooks. Each worksheet shows how to use various features of SageMath in a calculus-based physics course or how to run VPython in SageMathCloud.

Introduction to SageMath

You can find numerous tutorials online for getting started with SageMath but here are a few of the better ones I've found.

• Try an interactive tutorial here

• Sage for Undergraduates is a textbook written by Dr. Gregory Bard. Free pdf versions of the text can be found here.

• A tutorial from San Diego State University

• Official SageMath tutorials

Editing SageMath Worksheets

You are encouraged to edit these worksheets for your students. This material is released under the CC-BY 4.0 license. Please modify these documents to fit the needs of your class and share your changes with others. Many of the earlier sections could be used in a Modern Physics course with a little editing.

Editing Tips

• Everything written in cells that start with %md on the first line are treated as Markdown cells ((Markdown Tutorial))

• Starting a cell with %html treats everything in the cell as HTML code

• Double-click on the text of a cell to show the code

• The hashtag '#' is used in calculation cells to indicate comments that are not parsed by SageMath

See the ReadMe for directions on how to copy these documents into your SageMathCloud project

Topics

- Units and Signficant Figures

Units and Significant Figures Interactive Worksheet

This worksheet covers the following SageMath features:

• Defining variables

• Obtaining numerical approximate results

• Using units in SageMath

• Defining functions

• Substituting values for variables

- Derivatives and Integrals

Derivatives and Integrals Interactive Worksheet

This worksheet covers the following SageMath features:

• Defining functions

• Taking derivatives

• Plotting functions

• Integrating functions

Using VPython in SageMathCloud

Intro to VPython Jupyter Notebook

A short guide on getting started using VPython. This Jupyter notebook will cover the following features:

• How to import VPython

• How to draw spheres on screen

• How to create new canvases

• Using while loops in Python

• How to animate a sphere

Modeling Constant Velocity in VPython

Modeling Constant Velocity Jupyter Notebook

This Jupyter notebook will cover the following features:

• Animate different shapes with constant velocity

• Create arrows to show direction of motion

• Graph position vs. time

Constant Acceleration in VPython

Constant Acceleration Jupyter Notebook

This Jupyter notebook covers the following:

• Create objects moving with constant acceleration

Creating Motion Diagrams

You can create animations and motion diagrams using VPython and Jupyter notebooks using Physutil, a Python script that makes these things easy.

This notebook covers the following features:

• Including an on-screen timer

• Drawing motion diagrams

• Using Physutil for graphing

Documentation about Physutil can be found here

Bouncing Ball Demo

This notebook is based on the introduction to VPython tutorial on the VPython website. You can find it here.

Future Worksheets

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.