Primary Teaching Goals

• Allowing students to gain familiarity with using scopes in the lab without the overarching pressure of having to get the “right” data.
• Try to get the students used to the idea that sometimes you learn things by just diving in and figuring them out by trial and error.
• Using the scope to make a straightforward, but non-trivial measurement.

Key Concepts

• Many signals we work with in a physics lab are not constant, they vary over time.
• The Scope is an instrument which allows you to see a graphic display of how a voltage (x-axis) is changing as a function of time (y-axis).
  • Zooming in and out on the time and voltage axes.
  • Triggering, what does it mean and what are some of the common scenarios encountered.
  • Making quantitative measurements using a scope.
• Using a simple function generator to produce a time varying voltage.
  • Setting frequency.
  • Setting amplitude.
  • Selecting type of waveform.
• RC Circuits
  • Capacitive discharge and time constant.
  • RC circuit.
  • Grounding.

Main failure modes to look for

• Scope failure modes are infinite. Don't be afraid to hit Default Setup.
• BNC's are not “locked” in place.
• Grounding issues in RC circuit.
• Function generator controls shown in green need to be at their default settings.