[mesa-users] using MESA for education

Fri Jun 6 16:12:21 EDT 2014

Hi,

My guess is that for basic starting students won't need to ever touch the compiler after installation -- no run_star_extras for them.  For those users, why not just have them download binaries and make the install trivial -- no compilations, just set some environment variables.   You'd need to have binaries for the most common platforms, but that shouldn't be too bad.   Does that sound interesting?    Is it feasible?

-B

On Jun 6, 2014, at 1:06 PM, Monique Windju wrote:

> Jakub this looks great! Youtube videos would be so amazing, especially for users that have no experience installing code or checking all the requirements. 
> 
> Once the installations were sorted out we were able to focus on MESA and teaching students how to use it. I think some students may have been deterred at the beginning of the quarter because of how complicated the MESA install is, in the future having a nice go-to with videos would make a big difference. 
> 
> - Monique
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Jakub Ostrowski <ostrowski at astro.uni.wroc.pl> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I wrote some installation guide for students a couple of months ago: http://mesastar.org/teaching-materials/basics-of-the-mesa-evolution-code/installation-guide/view My goal was to put all the informations into one place and make it possible to install MESA even for inexperienced students. You can take a look at this. I’m going to update the document soon and probably make some youtube tutorials as well.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jakub
> 
> On 06 Jun 2014, at 20:27, Monique Windju <mwindju at ucsc.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Ed,
>> 
>> We just wrapped up a MESA lab section in Professor Stan Woosley's undergraduate physics of stars class at UCSC. The students ranged from sophomores to seniors, mostly sophomores. 
>> 
>> We spent half the quarter working out installation issues while covering the basics of MESA (how to run, how to read your data, inlist structure). During this time we ran test suite cases and would discuss pgplot output on a projector.
>> 
>> This was an extra option outside of class, so the students that participated will be turning in a writeup with plots and an explanation of the work they did. We had one mandatory test suite case + 3 optional cases, students are required to run at least 2 cases.  
>> 
>> MESA was self-contained in a section, and while it was mentioned in class we did not use it in lecture. Instead we chose test suite cases that related to the topics we covered in lecture/homework, then we had a Friday session where new users could come and ask questions/run the test suite cases together. 
>> 
>> ------
>> 
>> The biggest roadblock was installation, especially for students who owned windows machines. About three weeks ago Tug setup a mac mini for our students to SSH into and run mesa, since getting MESA to work on everybody's machine was getting out of hand. We had two students attempt the installation and almost fried their hard drives (eek, one had never partitioned before and wasn't supervised). 
>> 
>> As far as materials go, the only thing we have is a typed up "Project Requirements" from our section. We were lucky to have Stan, Tug, and Justin around to help out, and did not rely on the already posted teaching materials. Are you interested in seeing this assignment?
>> 
>> 
>> Let me know if you have questions!
>> Monique Windju 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 10:17 AM, Ed Brown <ebrown at pa.msu.edu> wrote:
>> Dear MESA-Users,
>> The MESA council would like to know about how MESA is used for education.  If you have ever used MESA for this purpose, we would greatly appreciate you answering the following questions; send your reply to ebrown at pa.msu.edu .
>> 
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Ed
>> (for the MESA council)
>> 
>> 
>> 1. For which level have you used MESA? e.g., high school, undergraduate, graduate.
>> 
>> 2. How did you use MESA? e.g., used plots or movies in lectures; had students use MESA in assignments; had students use MESA for course projects.
>> 
>> 3. If students used MESA, what were the main difficulties they encountered (e.g., obtaining the code, compiling/installation, constructing inlists, etc.)
>> 
>> 4. The site mesastar.org has a section on teaching materials. Are there changes to the site that would make you more likely to upload your materials? If you could simply send (via Dropbox or email) your material to someone who would take care of posting them to mesastar.org, would this make you more likely to contribute?
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> -- 
>> Monique Windju
>> mwindju at ucsc.edu
>> 
>> University of California, Santa Cruz
>> Undergraduate Research Fellow at
>> Supercomputing Lab for UnderGrads (SLUG)
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
>> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their 
>> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, 
>> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech_______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech
> _______________________________________________
> mesa-users mailing list
> mesa-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mesa-users
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Monique Windju
> mwindju at ucsc.edu
> 
> University of California, Santa Cruz
> Undergraduate Research Fellow at
> Supercomputing Lab for UnderGrads (SLUG)
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their 
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, 
> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech_______________________________________________
> mesa-users mailing list
> mesa-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mesa-users

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