GEOS F436/636: Beyond the Mouse

Good to see you back for week 2!

Our goals this week are:

1. Review / clean up for week 1
2. More on data types
3. Matrices, vectors and cell arrays (and a sneak peek preview of structs)
4. Relational operators

Things to do:

1. Download the  extended slides with notes.
2. Download the lab file.
3. Do the readings
   • Hahn & Valentine ch.2 through 2.6, ch. 6.1, 6.2, 6.3. or Attaway, ch 1.4, 1.5, 3.1, 5.2, 5.3
   • For more on representing real numbers with fixed and floating point notation, see https://www.science.smith.edu/dftwiki/index.php/CSC231_An_Introduction_to_ Fixed-_and_Floating-Point_Number

During lab this week, I will meet with the grad students to discuss their projects. Projects will require: A problem description; a dataset; data processing; data visualization; an online report / web page (several options for that!); and a 10 min presentation in class. It would be a good idea to start thinking about your interests.

Week 1 of Beyond the Mouse will introduce you to each other and to programming as a skill.

Learning goals are:

1. Orient yourself in the MATLAB interface and the computing lab
2. Understand the following concepts: variables, operators number literals, statements, functions
3. Write your first small pieces of script and your first function.

Things to do:

1. Download the updated syllabus .
2. Download the extended slides with notes.
3. Download the lab files.
4. Do the optional readings:
   • Hahn & Valentine ch. 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 3.1 or Attaway, ch 1.1 to 1.4
   • R. Grapenthin, “Computer Programing for Geosciences: Teach Your Students How to Make Tools”. https://eos.org/opinions/computer-programing-for-geosciences-teach-your-students-how-to-make-tools   (by the original instructor of this course)
   • P. Guo, “Why Scientists and Engineers Must Learn Programming”. https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/166115-why-scientists-and-engineersmust-learn-programming/fulltext