Instructor

Prasun Ray

 

Course description

This course provides a quick, (hopefully) painless introduction to matlab for CDT students. It does not assume any prior matlab experience and should also be helpful to students who have used matlab in the past but would like a quick refresher. The course is divided into two parts. The first part introduces students to the basics: using matlab for elementary linear algebra, programming, and data visualisation. The second part of the course is structured around a programming project. Students, working in small groups, will develop codes to: 1.) solve a system of ODEs and 2.) analyse and visualise the results.

 

Syllabus

Part 1: Linear algebra: building and manipulating matrices, solving systems of equations. Programming: scripts, m-files, and functions; for-loops, conditional statements.

Part 2: Solving a simple initial value problem, numerical differentiation and integration, visualisation, data analysis.

Part 3: Programming project: problem description and good programming practice. More on visualisation: animations and 3-d plots. Group projects.

Registration and getting started

If you are interested in attending the course (and your CDT hasn't already signed you up for it), please fill out the short form here.

Students have the option of working on their own laptops during the course. Imperial students can download Matlab here. A free alternative to Matlab is Octave which can be downloaded here.