Introduction to MATLAB
Fall, 2022
Instructor: J. Klinck, 3-6005, klinck@ccpo.odu.edu
Class time: 2:15 -- 4:15 Friday
room: IRB1 3200
The goal of this class is to introduce students to MATLAB so that they can use it to analyze data, evaluate mathematical expressions, solve numerical problems and make publication quality graphics. At the end of this class, a student will be able to use MATLAB for these practical purposes and will be able to expand his/her understanding to use other capabilities of MATLAB, to download and use various MATLAB tools available on the web and to create his/her own specialize MATLAB routines.
This class is a practical introduction to MATLAB, with a focus on its use in science, especially environmental science. General topics include
Students are expected to read the information on the web site for each class before arriving in class. Each class will start with a short overview of the topics and tools for that class.
Most of the class time will be spent by the students doing the various class tasks and working on homework. Instructor will be in class to answer questions and provide extra information about the topics as needed.
The purpose of the class to to teach how to use MATLAB to calculate and display quantitative information. The class involves some algebraic manipulation and the use of a few algebraic formulas. A comprehensive knowledge of algebra or calculus in not required for the class.
MATLAB is one of many evaluation and graphics packages available to you. Most of them do many of the same tasks. Most ocean scientists use MATLAB and there are numerous free/online tools (specialized functions) for topics related to ocean science. For these historical reasons, it is the appropriate numerical tool to use.
One criticism of MATLAB is that it is an expensive commercial product, although many locations (such as ODU) have purchased site licenses. Alternative software is R, Octave, Python (among others), all of which are free (open source). With some programming effort, these tools are acceptable alternatives to MATLAB.
Once you learn how to use MATLAB, it will be easy (generally) to learn how to use other software tools. All of these products use (mostly) the same programming techniques, although the names of routines and command syntax will be different.
Each class will have a few (4 to 6) in-class activities (tasks) to accomplish something useful which illustrates a concept or capability. All students are expected to have access to MATLAB during class (which is the topic of the first class) and to write scripts (also explained in the first class) to do these tasks.
Each class will have an evaluation activity based on the topics covered in class. The evaluations will be matlab scripts which will accomplish certain tasks. These scripts will be sent to me by email and are due before the beginning of the next class (see Evaluation Policy for details).
There is considerable information scattered around the web on the use of MATLAB. Some of these are tutorials. Others are sets of MATLAB procedures for specialized calculations. Follow this link for a partial list of sites having additional information about MATLAB tools.
Note, however, that all of the information needed to complete the tasks and evaluation for a given class is contained in the class notes (and in previous class notes). Students do not need to search the web for clues to doing the work for this class.
There are no textbooks for this class. There are numerous books on MATLAB applied to various subjects which you might find useful at some point. However, the links below lead to online (free) documents explaining various tools and capabilities of MATLAB.
There are (free) guides (in pdf format) at the MathWorks site (www.mathworks.com/help) which are sub-divided by topics making it somewhat confusing to find the details that you need. Go to www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/index.html to see some documents on general topics. You might start with "get started".
All users guides and reference manuals produced by MathWorks are available at MATLAB online documentation. This provides comprehensive information about MATLAB capabilities, so it can be a bit overwhelming for the new user.
There is also help in various forms available during a MATLAB session. Details will be provided in an upcoming class.
There are no tests or exams for this class. Each class will have a evaluation assignment which is graded (see homework policy below). Each evaluation script is worth 10 points. There are 14 classes so the maximum total points for the course is 140 points.