Wednesday's lab: problem solving 'competition'

Tomorrow, I thought we'd try a little problem solving competition. Here's a sketch of the idea. It worked pretty well when I tried it in the past.

• We'll put a problem up on the board for all groups to tackle, drawn from all material to date.
• All groups can turn in the problem to the TAs on paper for points, for bonus points you can do it on the whiteboard. 
• After 10-15min (or however long it takes), all paper & whiteboard submissions for that problem are closed and the correct answer is announced. If a group has it correct on the board, we will illustrate one of the solutions; if no one gets it, we will sketch the solution for you.
• Each solved problem is worth 5 points if correctly answered (on the board or on paper), 3 points if it is mostly in the right direction, 1 point just for trying and turning something physicsy in.
• If you do the problems on the board (as opposed to just turning in a paper), your group gets +5 *extra* points for having the first substantially correct solution, +3 points for the second group, +1 all others showing any reasonable attempt on the board (to encourage you to try). In the case of ties, both groups get the higher number of points.
• If your are close to the right solution but miss some small detail, we will either call it close enough or penalize you very slightly (say, 1-2 points).
• The lab grade will be such that if you get on average 3 points per problem, your grade will be ~75% just for trying. That way you can get a good grade just for a good effort, even without getting most of the problems right. The bonus points for speed & doing the problems on the board will be substantial, you could get over 100%.
• No penalties for wrong answers or trying it on the board. Even if you're totally wrong and try it on the board, you get 1 point for trying and 1 point for doing it on the board for 2 points in total.
• We'll run this for 60-90min, depending on how you do, and leave 1-1.5hrs at end to continue working these problems & answer any homework questions.
• If no groups are getting the problems, we will give progressively revealing hints.
• A few HW5 problems will be in play to help you get started on that. Otherwise, they will be mostly problems you've never seen to make it fair.

Again, the overall scoring will be lenient enough that any group giving a decent effort will be ensured ~75% just for trying, and just getting a few problems right will all but guarantee an A or a B.

If this is a dismal failure, I promise not to do it again :-)