CAPA Physics Problems

Browsing the CAPA physics problem collection

Rochester has a collection of problems used in physics. These problems were originally CAPA problems and were converted some years ago, so the code isn't pretty, but for the most part they work.

The problems have been collected into a

physics "course"

so that you can browse through them and see what is already available.

Installing the CAPA physics problem collection

To download your own copy pf the physics collection transfer to the directory where you would like the physics problem library to reside

(e.g.   /opt/webwork/libraries/ )

and type

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.webwork.rochester.edu:/webwork/cvs/rochester checkout  rochester_physics_problib

In what follows I'll assume the physics problem library has been created at

.../webwork/libraries/rochester_physics_problib

you will need to adjust several lines in global.conf so that the macros associated with the CAPA library can be found. The original snippet reads:

# Locations of CAPA resources. (Only necessary if you need to use converted CAPA
# problems.)
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{CAPA_Tools}             = "$courseDirs{macros}/CAPA_Tools/", 
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{CAPA_MCTools}           = "$courseDirs{macros}/CAPA_MCTools/",  
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{CAPA_GraphicsDirectory} = "$courseDirs{html}/CAPA_Graphics/", 
$pg{specialPGEnvironmentVars}{CAPA_Graphics_URL}      = "$courseURLs{html}/CAPA_Graphics/",   

If you only need to use these physics problems in one course (say physics_course) you can leave these lines as they are and create links in the .../physics_course/templates/macros directory

ln -s  ...webwork/libraries/rochester_physics_problib/macros/CAPA_Tools CAPA_Tools
ln -s  ...webwork/libraries/rochester_physics_problib/macros/CAPA_MCTools CAPA_MCTools

and in the .../physics_course/html directory

ln -s ...webwork/libraries/rochester_physics_problib/CAPA_Graphics CAPA_Graphics

If you want to make these problems usable by all courses then just change the lines in global.conf described above so that they point to the addresses where the CAPA macros and graphics can be found.

Most of the problems work, but not all, so check things out before you assign them.