This semester, I am taking CAE 529 Dynamics of Structures. While I have enjoyed the material we are learning in the class, it covers a lot of areas in math and engineering that are usually forgotten when working in the structural engineering field, an aspect I have really enjoyed. However, I do have one issue with the class, the notes. Essentially, it is scanned sheets of paper uploaded to Canvas that my professor reads as the lecture notes/lecture slides.
For me, the best way to build intuition for abstract topics like dynamics is to understand where things are derived from. In this case, I decided to teach myself LaTeX. Which is a high-quality document preparation system and typesetting language widely used in academia, science, engineering, and mathematics. Unlike word processors like Microsoft Word, which use a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) approach, LaTeX is a markup-based system where you write plain text combined with commands to define the structure and formatting of the document.
The following document represents (see pdf below) about 1/2 the material we are going to cover in this course, with the formulas derived from scratch. All written using LaTeX by myself.
I do not know what the long-term goals are of this mini-project. I have thought of sharing the notes with my professor so he can use them in future classes; however, I do not want to be doing his job for him. I have also been thinking about making a short, formal-ish textbook-style document out of them and publishing it online. However, I am not sure how to go about that, and if I can legally or ethically do so, and I also feel weird doing this as I have not earned my PHD. It would also take a lot of extra time to add context for what is being done on each step, make more graphs, and code in addition to actually adding some structure to the notes.
Let me know what your thoughts are. I would love to hear any feedback or ideas for what I should do with them once this class is over.
CAE_529_Notes_Jackson_Menendez_Jackson_Menendez.pdf
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