Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding:
At the end of the course studentswill acquire, through laboratory practice, the theoretical and practical skills necessary for writing simple programs in MATLAB.
Applying knowledge and understanding::
Students must be able to analyze simple problems, identify a solution and write short programs to implement the solution on a computer.
Making judgments:
Students will need theoretical and practical knowledge to identify their own solutions to simple problems and express them through the formalisms of computer science.
Communication skills:
students must be able to present their work, documenting it clearly.
Prerequisites
None
Course unit content
The course is divided in two parts: a theoretical part (about 6 hours) and another consisting of of experimental activities (16 hours). \
The theoretical part covers the following topics:
data representation,
computer architecture,
boolean algebra,
algorithms and flow control.
The goal of the practical part is to teach, in laboratory classes, the basic elements of MATLAB programming.
Full programme
Theoretical foundations
- Computer architecture.
- Data representation.
- Basic programming concepts .
- boolean algebra
- algorithms and control flow
MATLAB programming
- Introduction to MATLAB
- Data and variables
- Vectors and matrices
- Logical operators
- System functions
- Control structures and loops: if, for, while
- Defining and using functions
- Graphic functions
Bibliography
Suggested textbooks:
Holly Moore
MATLAB for engineers (4th edition)
Prentice-Hall, 2014
William J. Palm III
Introduction to MATLAB for Engineers
McGraw-Hill, 2010
The slides used during the classes and labs will be made available on the web site of the course.
Teaching methods
The theoretical part of the course will be illustrated through lectures using overhead projections. The experimental part will include practical work carried out by the students. These exercises are introduced by a short lecture in which students are introduced to the programming tools that will be used for the exercises. The exercises are carried out by groups of students (no more than two) or by individual students.
Assessment methods and criteria
The exam consists of a written test and a practical test. The written test is passed with at least 4 correct answers out of 6. The written test gives access to the practical test. The practical test consists in writing a simple function and the related script with function call in MATLAB environment. For evaluation, the correctness of the function call is considered of outmost importance.
Other information
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