COEN 45, MATLAB Programming, Winter 2011

Contact info

• Instructor: Warren C. Gibson, warren(at)gibson2.com
  • Ph.D. Engineering, Case Western Reserve Univ.
  • Co-founder, CSA Engineering, Inc., Mt. View, CA
  • MATLAB user for about 15 years
  • I have written up my personal experiences with computers going back to the 1960’ s in this magazine article, “ When a Computer Filled a Room”
  • Santa Clara instructor since 2002
  • No office, no phone :-(
  • Office hours TBA
• Lab assistant: Jing Wu, yocoso(at)gmail.com

Syllabus and text

The syllabus is here. Your text is Gilat, MATLAB, An Introduction with Applications, 4th ed., Wiley. An online version is available here for about $50 and the paper version should be available in the bookstore for about $83. I recommend the paper version from Amazon for $56.

Homework

• Homework assignments will be posted on this web site at least a week in advance.
• Unless otherwise directed, homework is to be submitted in class in written form.
• If you have trouble with a MATLAB assignment that you cannot resolve, please send me your script to me as an email attachment. I can very likely find the problem quickly. I'm not very responsive on Fridays but otherwise watch email pretty closely, especially Monday night.

Quizzes

There will be short quizzes at the start of class most Tuesdays. There is no makeup for missed quizzes for any reason. But I will drop your two lowest quiz scores including any zeros for missed quizzes.

Lab

You should be signed up for one of the three lab sessions (Tues, Wed, or Thurs) from 2:15-5:00.

Lab assignments will be posted here at least a week in advance and will be discussed in class. Be sure to download and study the assignment before you come to the lab. Lab work is to be completed and submitted during the lab time unless you get special permission to do otherwise. Also, there will be a makeup session at the end of the quarter in case you miss a lab. The lab sessions are all the same, but please attend the lab for which you signed up unless you have a good reason not to, in which case please contact your lab instructor. There may not be extra seats available for all labs.

Please download and read the general lab instructions.

Midterm exam

There will be a midterm exam.

Final exam

There will be a comprehensive written final exam on Thu.\ Mar.\ 17. (8AM class: 9:10AM-12:10PM, 11:50 class: 1:30-4:30).

MATLAB and the Mathworks

Needless to say, we will be using MATLAB extensively in this class. I believe all ME's should have their own copy of MATLAB on their personal computer. The Student Version which you can buy online here is a bargain compared to what commercial users pay. But if you prefer, you can use it in the Design Center.

Homework downloads:

• (Mar. 4) Assignment 8, due Thurs. Mar. 10
• Assignment 7 due Tues. Mar. 1
• Assignment 6 due Tues. Feb. 22
• Assignment 5 due Tues. Feb. 15
• Assignment 4 due Tues. Feb. 1
• Assignment 3 due Tues. Jan. 25
• Assignment 2 due Tues. Jan. 18
• Assignment 1 due Tues. Jan. 11
• If you are using the third ed. you can get photocopies of the homework pages from me or ask your friends to see their book.

Tutor script

(Feb 5) You can practice for the midterm by downloading and exercising the tutor program tutor.m. You will also need practice.m, which you can modify within limits. Chances are good that someone will be able to break this script.

Lab downloads.

• (Reposted Mar. 1) Lab #8, solving a nonlinear equation of motion. You will need twomass.m, twomassfun.m (incomplete) and drawbox.m.
• Lab #7, solving a nonlinear differential equation.
• Lab #6, Taylor series function. You will need these m-files: dtest.m, fsin.m, decay.m, Taylor.m, TaylorTest.m.
• Lab #5, cantilever beam analysis. Download lab5.m (incomplete).
• Lab #4, the Collatz problem. For this lab, you will need these incomplete template files: lab4.m and collatz.m. Important: to download, right-click and save. J
• Lab #3, Jan. 25, 26, 27: flywheel energy storage.
• Lab #2, Jan. 18, 19, 20: linear regression.
• Lab #1, Jan. 11, 12, 13: random numbers.
• General lab instructions.

Lecture files

I will post scripts and occasional powerpoint files that I show in class.

• (Feb. 26) Scripts shown in class Feb. 24: yell.m, olympic.m, olympic2.m, skydiver.m, skyfun.m, bk.m, bksys.m.
• Feb 18: Scripts shown in class
  • translate.m, Gibson's vocabulary builder.
  • rocket1.m, Sample problem 6-11 done as in the text, but cleaned up.
  • rocket2.m, Sample problem 6-11 vectorized.
  • rectifier.m, Sample problem 6-12.
  • Sierpinski.m, Problem 30, chapter 6 -- Sierpinski triangles.
  • randwalk.m, like problem 29, but in 2-D.
• Feb 9 income tax problem.
• Jan 24 ppt file for Jan 25
• Jan 17 pdf file for Jan 18
• Jan 5 ppt file for Jan 11
• (Jan 3) ppt file for Jan 3