Computing for Engineers and Scientists - CITS1005

Overview

This unit introduces students to the process of taking an engineering or scientific problem, identifying its components, and then expressing the solution to these components in computational terms. MATLAB is used as the programming language. In the first part of the course students are taught standard programming constructs, data types, the use of operators, and control flow. The decomposition of programs into functions to aid design, modularity and code reuse is also emphasised. The second half of the course introduces the reading and writing of files, basic data structures, representation of surfaces, data visualisation, floating point arithmetic, numerical differentiation and integration, optimisation, and basic geometric algorithms.

Getting Started

The hard copy lecture notepad is available for collection at the Computer Science Reception Desk.

The handbook entry and general unit policies are all available from the online unit outline. You should make sure you read and understand this document, particularly the rules defining satisfactory progress. In addition, please be aware of the timing and significance of both the HECS census date and the deadline for withdrawal without academic penalty.

Contact Hours

With regards to formal contact hours, you will be required to attend two 1-hour lectures (starting from Week 1),  and a one 2-hour laboratory per week (starting from Week 2). You can also consider attending the optional one 1-hour MATLAB workshop (starting from Week 2).

A six-point unit is deemed to be equivalent to one quarter of a full-time workload, and so you will be expected to commit 10-12 hours per week to the unit, averaged over the entire semester. Careful attention to time management will be needed to ensure that you are not overloaded when deadlines approach.

MATLAB Workshop

This workshop will start in Week 2 and is optional. It is aimed primarily at students with no prior programming experience and works more like a face-to-face discussion forum. During this time, the lecturer may go over the week's critical concepts slowly, or give additional examples, and encourage all questions, no matter how elementary.

Assessment

The assessment scheme for CITS1005 consists of two projects, each is worth 15% and a 2hr examination in the November examination period, contributing the other 70% to the total assessment.

Passing this unit requires achieving a 50% overall mark, with a minimum score of 40% in both the final examination and the in-semester coursework (projects mark).