The SAM Network and Maple
Maple Lab for Math 142 (Lab
A)
Douglas B. Meade
Department of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Welcome to the Maple Labs at USC!
Welcome to the computer laboratories and classrooms
in the Department of Mathematics at the University of South Carolina. If you are reading this as you are waiting
for your lab session to begin, introduce yourself to another student in the lab
and wait for your TA or instructor to begin the lab. (If you are reading this at a time other than your scheduled lab
session, you should be able to follow these instructions on your own. Should
you encounter any difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact your TA or
lab staff member for help.)
The computer labs in the
Department of Mathematics are part of the SAM (Science and Mathematics) network
maintained by the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). The majority of the funding for these labs, and other academic
computing equipment (projectors, printers, …) is from the Student Technology
Fee. All of the computers in LeConte
(LC) 102, 124, 303A, 401 and PSC 102 are part of the SAM network. These rooms have different hours of
operation; for work outside of the weekly lab session, feel free to use the
ones that are most convenient for you.
Instructions
The purpose of this week’s lab is for you to become
familiar with the SAM network. In
particular, you will learn how to login and logout of the network and how to
access Maple and the Internet. Once
this is complete, you will begin to learn about Maple by viewing information
provided in Maple’s help system.
A. Login and
Logout
1.
When
you are seated at a computer on the SAM network, begin the login process by
pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This
will open a window in which you will be asked to enter your username and
password.
2.
Your
lab instructor will have your username.
Usually, the SAM usernames are created from your first and last names.
For example, if your name is Jane Doe then your SAM username is likely to be jdoe. If this name is already assigned to another
student then it is likely that a number will be appended to this name, e.g., jdoe2. Also, if your name is long, your last name
may be truncated to 5 characters.
3.
Your
initial SAM password is your nine-digit student ID number. Enter this number (with no dashes or spaces)
4.
Once
you are logged in, take a look at your Windows desktop. You should see several icons, including ones
for Internet Explorer and Maple 9.5. To see your personal folder on the SAM network, open My
Computer and click on the Z: drive.
5.
Change
your password. To do this, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete
and then click on the button labeled Change Password. You will need to re-enter your current
password, then your new password (twice).
Be sure you select a password that you will remember without writing it
down. Also, the system may not accept
passwords that are simple words or are otherwise too easy to guess. One recommendation is to put a number,
space, or other punctuation in the middle of a word that makes sense to you.
6.
Logout
of the SAM network. Again, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This time, click on Log Off …. Confirm that you really want to logout by
pressing the button labeled Log Off.
Prior to leaving the computer, visually verify that the computer is
ready for the next user to login.
7.
If
there are other students waiting to use a computer, please get up from your
computer and let them complete this part of the lab. Once they are done, one of you should login to the computer and
complete the rest of this week’s assignment.
B. Accessing the Internet and maplets
0.
If
you are not already logged in to the computer, please do so now. (See Step A.)
1.
Internet
Explorer 6.0 (IE) is the standard browser provided in the SAM computer
labs. An icon for IE is on the default
desktop; double click on this icon to launch IE. The IE window will open with the default home page (http://www.cas.sc.edu/).
2.
Open
the Calculus II (Math 142) Lab homepage (http://www.math.sc.edu/~meade/142L-S05/. Add this page to your list of favorite
websites by selecting Add to Favorites under the Favorites menu
at the top of the IE window.
3.
From
the Calculus II (Math 142) Lab homepage, click on Lab Assignments. This page contains the weekly lab
assignments. For Lab A (this week),
note that there are several maplets.
a.
Click
on Shift. This opens a
user interface for testing your ability to recognize shifts of seven basic
functions. To see the seven basic
functions, click the Show Basic 7 Functions button. To test your ability to recognize shifts of
these functions, click on the Show Shifted Graph button. Enter the formula for the displayed graph,
using valid Maple syntax, in the box labeled Answer, then click the Check
Answer button. (If you are having
troubles, the Show Answer button shows the correct answer.)
b.
Click
on FunctionPlotter. This
should open a user interface for plotting a function on a given window. (Please notify your TA if you have any
problems launching or running this maplet.)
To create a plot of the graph of 
in a viewing window with 
and 
, enter the function as x*exp(1-x^2) and fill in the bounds for x and y, then click the Plot
button. Here are two more examples to
consider: Find a good window to display the graph of 
on the interval 
. Create a nice plot
of exactly one period of 
.
C. A First Look at Maple
0.
If
you are not already logged in to the computer, please do so now. (See Step A.)
1.
Locate
the Maple 9.5 icon on the desktop. To
launch Maple 9.5, double click on this icon.
A Maple 9.5 banner will flash on your computer; this will disappear when
the Maple window opens.
2.
When
Maple 9.5 starts, a Tip of the Day will be displayed. These tips can be useful, but most of them will not be
immediately relevant to you at this point.
If you do not wish to see these tips, unclick the box next to Show
tip on startup. To see more tips, click
on Next Tip; to close this window, click Close.
3.
You
will almost always want to have the Maple window enlarged to fill the full size
of the monitor. To do this, click on
the middle icon in the upper left corner of the border of the Maple window.
4.
To
minimize the window to an icon on the taskbar, click on the leftmost icon in
the upper left corner of the border of the Maple window.
5.
From
the Help menu, scroll down to New Users and, from the menu that
appears, select Full Tour. This
is a quick introduction to Maple. Some
of the information is not relevant at this time. You should spend some time looking at sections (1) Working Through the New User’s Tour and (6) Calculus.
If you have more time, also look at sections (2)
Numerical Calculations and (4) 2-D Graphics.
6.
Lines
that begin with [>
contain executable Maple commands.
Place the cursor anywhere on one of these lines and press Enter. The result will appear, in dark blue, immediately below the command.) Note that if you want to be able to return to
anything you have worked on in Maple you must save your work as a Maple
worksheet. To save your work either
click on the icon that looks like a diskette or selecting Save or Save
As … from the File menu on the Maple window.
7.
You
are not expected to remember everything that you see in these tours. These tours simply provide an indication of
some of the types of operations Maple can perform for us.
8.
When
you have finished the tour (or the lab session ends), do not forget to exit
your Maple session (under the File menu, select Exit) and to
logout of the network (see Step A).
9.
To
end a Maple session, click on the leftmost icon in the upper left corner of the
border of the Maple window. (Other ways
to end a Maple session can be found in the File menu.)