How many matlab users are there

How many simultaneous activations may I have? Walter Roberson on 9 Jul Student license provides one activation.

Accepted Answer. Walter Roberson on 10 Sep Downloads are not a problem. Simultaneous activations are the limitation. The limitations have changed over time, so you need to consult your license.

Look for a section titled "The MathWorks, Inc. You also need to know what license type you have, and you need to know whether your institution has some kind of bulk agreement with Mathworks there are some countries where most universities have such an agreement, and there are other countries were few do. For example, if you happen to be covered under a Total Academic Headcount license type, then at least under the Ra license terms, you would be covered by:.

Total Academic Headcount. Programs may be installed and used by. Licensed Users both on institution-owned or leased Computers and on. Technical support is available. Standalone Named User. Program use is restricted to the single ,. Programs may be activated and used on one or. The physical. With given acceleration due to gravity g we can compute distance x and height y of objects trajectory at certain time t.

In the next figure you can see trajectories for different angles with same start point, speed and gravity. In the most of the secondary schools teachers and students compute results on the table or the paper. Matlab can be used to visualize different trajectories in just few lines of code for better understanding and imagination of the problem.

With additional commands we could animate whole movement. This is one of the examples how to use Matlab in secondary schools physics classes. Another question is if Matlab should be considered only as a supporting program for the teachers or if students should also learned know how to create own scripts and programs. We think that we should consider both. Benefits of the first part of the question were answered with our example before.

Writing Matlab scripts and programs should not be a problem for the students also because of its simplicity. We think that for students it would be also interesting. They would also learn some basic concepts of algorithm writing. Trajectories of thrown object. In previous chapter we generally talked about the Matlab practices and lectures at the universities. We briefly showed how you could use the Matlab benefits in secondary schools also.

This chapter will discus topics suitable for basic Matlab course. We divided topics into three categories. Essential topics are parts of Matlab that every student should know because they provide strong platform for advanced topics and other Matlab toolboxes.

Advanced topics should cover additional parts of the Matlab necessary for later student courses. We will describe topics that we cover in our course but other interesting parts of the Matlab suitable for other study programs are described in other interesting topics.

With Matlab core components come several add-ons as well. It is necessary to know all about basic Matlab concepts before we start to use specializes toolboxes suitable for our needs. In our opinion the essential topic for advanced Matlab users should be Matlab basics, graphics, Graphical User Interface and Simulink.

Next we will talk in the detail about each of them and on what we should focus at most. Understanding of the Matlab basic principles is key to be successful advanced Matlab user.

Students should know how to use Matlab windows Command Window, Workspace, History and the benefits of each of them. Effective usage of Matlab help system is also necessary to solve Matlab warnings and errors. It is our choice if we use fast help command or Matlab Product help where user can find detailed information. Basic computations can be made in the Command Window through statements or in scripts M-files for example area of the circle. For additional support we can use the built-in Matlab functions for complex numbers or trigonometry functions.

What makes Matlab powerful tool are vectors and matrices. There are several ways to create and manipulate them. Working with indexes of matrix is a very important and challenging parts in the Matlab for students, even harder with indexes range. Programing in the Matlab with functions, loops or conditions is one of the highlights of Matlab basics. In our course we are creating simple sorting algorithms.

Students must then use almost every part of Matlab basics that we mentioned in this section. We are also teaching advanced data types — structures and cells.

Data types are often used as types for output or input arguments to several Matlab functions. Functions and scripts provide sets of commands necessary for computing output data. Reading plain data is hard and we need some mechanism to represent them. Matlab contains several plotting commands for 2D and 3D figures. In 3D plotting we need to create grid for 3D space through meshgrid command. Some students have a hard time to understand this concept. Changing plot properties is another important knowledge.

We must create handler to plot and using get and set commands we can change line colour or type. We can also use standard Matlab handles like current axis gca , current figure gcf or current object gco. Matlab enable creating graphical user interface. With objects like buttons, labels, inputs or check box we can create interactive experience for users with no prior Matlab knowledge.

Students like creating user interfaces, but concept of the handles structure and callbacks can be sometimes difficult for them. We are trying explained this concept clearly and showed them how to call callback from another to reduce necessary commands. We can start model dynamical systems after Matlab basics lectures and practices.

Dynamics of any system can be expressed with differential equations and computed by ode solvers. With Matlab ode solvers users must write functions with differential equations. More natural way provides the Matlab extension Simulink. In Simulink we building simulation schema from graphical blocks, signals and then customizing parameters in the blocks. Simulation can be continuous or discrete. After Simulink basics we create simple DC motor model schema from differential equations of the mechanical and electrical parts.

Critical part for the students is relation between variable and variables differential, how this is modelled through integrator block and how to set initial conditions. On the practice students are modelling following equations:.

Equations represent simple pendulum differential equations where variables can be mass m , length of the pendulum l , acceleration due to gravity g and k is representative of the amount of damping present. Simulation schema for these equations is in the next figure. Simulink schema of simple pendulum. Students can change system parameters to simulate how motion of the pendulum change.

Standard simulation is with no input T and 90 degrees as initial pendulum position. After the essential topics lectures and practices it is time to choose advanced topics. Advanced topics depend on a study program of the students. Because our students studying cybernetics and robotics we focused after basic topics to topics related to their curriculum. In this session we are describing some of them next. In real world we often do not know structure of the systems gain, constants, etc.

Systems can be identified through regression methods with input and output data. Regressions methods are part of the Matlab in System Identification Toolbox. Another possibility to achieve approximation of the system is with neural networks. In our course there we use both of them to introduce basic principles of both methods for the system identification. Signal values from the Simulink models can be plotted into charts.

These signals can be also used for animation of models and Simulink 3D Animation provides this capability. Virtual Reality Mark-up Language represents 3D models using basic shapes and properties like geometry, appearance or translation. Building 3D animations is one of the interesting topics of our course for students and they are really enjoying it.

With the differential equations from previous practices we are animating simple pendulum that oscillates from right angle to equilibrium. Visualization of this system is in the next figure. Describing behaviour of real world systems with differential equations is often very challenging. Humans can control cars without knowing its precise description. Fuzzy logic can model systems in the terms of If-Then rules natural to our thinking. Inputs and outputs to the fuzzy system are modelled through fuzzy membership functions.

In our course there we introduce students into the basic concepts of fuzzy logic and then they modelling some decision problem. One of the problems is student own grading system where there are two tests, one exam and they must write rules based on the point gain for each one of them. Some interesting grade scales came often as result.

Most of the systems can be described as continuous variables depends on time or discrete variables are time-sampled. Some systems react to events and we do not know exactly when system change happens. These systems are called event-driven. Event-driven systems are important to know because they can be found in the industrial applications. They can be modelled by several methods like Petri nets or Statecharts. Matlab prefers Statecharts through Stateflow, which is design environment for developing them.

The states and transitions between states are represented graphically. Graphical representation is very useful within simulation where user can see which states are active and when system reacts to event through the transitions. For the Stateflow practise we are asking students to observe real word and look for examples of event-driven systems.

They came out with interesting observations like the elevators, intelligent traffic light sensors or door openers in public transportations which all react to the human touch. We are choosing and modelling one system into the Stateflow together. Simulation in the Simulink does not respect real time. If the Simulink schema is simple to the simulation it will be faster than in real time and if schema is complex simulation will be slower than in real time.

If we interact with real systems though the Simulink we must ensure precise timing. Interaction with the real time systems is necessary for the measuring physical values inputs and reaction to them through outputs. Port of computers can be used to do that with sound card, USB, parallel or serial port even with specialized measuring cards. Real Time toolbox is only available for the 32 bit Microsoft Windows operating systems and can provide precise timing standard usage is around 0.

Another real time communication can be made by OPC toolbox. With large amount of OPC server distributors we can communicate with almost every Programmable logic controller widely used in praxis. We can also write our data to provided space of the server and then to the process or controller. In the advanced topics there we described topics that are useful for students at our faculty.

There are many toolboxes suitable not only for engineering study programs but also for other like economics Financial Toolbox, Fixed-Income Toolbox, Financial Derivatives Toolbox or natural sciences Bioinformatics Toolbox, SimBiology. Toolboxes that we did not mention in this session can be introduced in other courses, bachelor or master theses. We think that future is in code generation for various devices FPGA, Embedded devices , or hardware in the loop simulation but variety of the Matlab toolboxes specialised for other topics are popular as well.

Results of the students are evaluated through point assigning for each course independently at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Bratislava Blaho et al.

Students can achieve points at most. Most times points are divided into two parts. The first amount of the points can student achieved for their activity at practices or tests through term.

The second part they can achieve on the exam test. Weight is on the exam as you can see. Maximum amount of the points allowed during term is 50 for the undergraduate courses. There are two main evaluation or result classification systems.

The first system classifies students via two or three checkpoints through term. All comes to these tests at the end. Point results depends on how successful are students to answer the test tasks.

It is a little bit problematic when students doing great at the practices, but they vacillate on the tests at the end of course.

They also do not have to learn until a test is in sight. This problem had been observed long time ago at the mathematics teaching. Students came from high schools and they were not used to learn so much or they had different knowledge background of the mathematics.

Many of them fail some of the basics mathematics courses. Students were evaluated at the every exercise. On the next exercise they had small test on previous topic. The results of the student grow significantly. We also used this schema. We had two reasons for that. One reason was that we had many topics covered in our course. It would be not useful to test student on topics they forget long time ago.

We choose to give more points during the term, so we give 40 points maximum for the practices. There were 10 practices for 4 points each. The first and the last were not evaluated. You can see results from year course classification distribution in the next figure. With weekly tasks evaluation students gained good amount of point that they carry to the exam. This type of evaluation does not fit everyone and in the next part of this session we will be talking about its advantages and disadvantages.

Point distribution for practices. Every student has different capability to learn. We cannot choose unified methodology to learn them all that we know.

But with proper motivation they will be willing to learn by themself more within their free time outside the university campus. Our week task evaluation is kind of motivation factor. Reachable classifications are motivators for being excellently prepared for practices.

Now it is time to talk about advantages and disadvantages of our method. We think of these advantages:. This method has also some advantages and disadvantages as you can see. The question is if this system works for students and if it is acceptable for them.

Computers really changed our lives and today are almost impossible to imagine life without them. We often use them without knowing it.

Computer by itself is a really powerful tool for computing, but for many years also for communication and sharing information. In fact, the basic idea for the Internet was collaboration across the continents with other researchers. We significantly use this tool today not only for sharing information but also in the teaching process. The benefits of good documentation are multifaceted:.

I am convinced that the best way to become a good coder is to write good documentation. Teaching is the best way to learn, and writing good documentation is teaching. You don't learn many tricks when you write documentation, but you learn how to think about problems, and you develop an intuition for how to make code more efficient and more user friendly.

The more user-friendly your codes are, the less cluttered the user's mind will be, the more you'll understand your own code, the more efficient your codes will be, and the more repeatable your science will be. In my view, the best way to become a better Matlab coder is to learn and use the publish feature.

Syntax, Description, Examples. For everything you ever write, even if it's only for yourself. The publish feature sounds very useful. I will definitely look into it and start using! Stephen on 7 Jul Sulaymon Eshkabilov on 18 Jun Very Good Point on Documentation!

Walter Roberson on 6 Jul Vote 7. It does not take long before questions pretty much repeat and one can start to answer other people based upon what one learned before. Through reading enough Questions and the answers from other people, and some experimentation, and reading documentation, one can learn a great deal. Possibilities such as classes and parallel programming are, to an experienced programmer, less about syntax and more about learning new ways of thinking about programming.

But experienced programmers can get a bit fossilized in how they think about programming, so it can take a lot of practice to learn completely new ways. I never really "got" object-oriented programming, for example. Thank you for your answer. I should have checked the older posts, and the one you included is very useful.

I have managed to follow couple of textbooks, but was still struggling. However as you mentioned, reading through Questions and Answers, and trying actual problems from Cody and Project Euler seem to help a lot.

Vote 6. This teaches you good concepts about programming, but languages like Fortran can be counterproductive if they get you in the habit of writing loops. I imagine that C is also in that bin, though I cannot tell, since I can barely spell C, not to mention write in it. The point is though, that you may need to learn a new programming style, thinking in terms of operations on entire arrays, rather than single element operations wrapped in loops.

This takes some practice. You might start with the Cody problems, but I'd suggest harder and more interesting problems like the Project Euler problems. As you advance in skill, you can also try picking apart the code of others, as found on the File Exchange. Pick a simple one, and look how I wrote it. This can teach you things about various programming styles, especially if you look at the work of other respected authors on the FEX.

And of course, you can learn a lot by reading the forums. Be careful though. Apply a filter to what you see, since anyone can answer a question. Including me! Think about what you see, and decide if it makes sense to you. Thanks for the great advice! I have also taken Fortran in some of my engineering classes, but was not very interested in programming that time. Never thought programming would be this exciting! Adam on 3 Mar Vote 3. Edited: Adam on 3 Mar I hadn't noticed this question at the time or I think maybe I did, but Stephen's answer was so comprehensive as regards advice that I didn't feel the need to add anything.

I do some research, come up with lots if ideas, implement them as prototypes and hopefully they are good enough for our company to put into our main software. I'm neither an expert software engineer nor an expert researcher, I'm just quite good at combining the two in a useful manner.

When I started I had never even heard of Matlab. To this day I have never been on a single Matlab course or done any kind of official training, I have just learned on the job and continue to do so. I have a good depth of knowledge in the areas I have used and am able to provide help and advice on those, but I still learn a huge amount from people like those named and others at the same time through browsing this forum.

As I began to produce prototype demos I made it a mission to try to learn at least one new thing in Matlab with every new prototype I created and always enjoy the software engineering design aspect in a language like Matlab.

After many years of working in GUIs we began to start building ever more complex tools with multiple communicating windows, etc. I completed a 2 week project using OOP for the first time in less time than my boss had expected it to take without knowing I was learning a whole new way of programming. It was one of the best Matlab decisions I have made. As for other stuff though, in addition to learning as I go through experimentation and the excellent documentation I started visiting this forum.

From the outset I decided I wanted to give at least as much as I 'take' so I began answering questions before I asked my first. I found that I actually have a lot of knowledge that can be passed on to others and by doing so, as others said, I learn a huge amount. That is important because I am doing a full time job - whilst helping others is nice I only spend work time doing so because I learn a lot that improves my own programming too so my employers gain from that.

In addition to this forum Yair Altman's blog has regularly been a source of enlightenment for me, especially when I go 'off-piste' with my requirements and need to delve into java.

Finally, two of the biggest things that helped me learn Matlab:. Walter Roberson on 3 Mar It is said that you do not really know something until you can explain it to someone else. Answering other people's questions helps a lot in learning yourself. John D'Errico on 30 Mar Walter makes a good point. I've written up my thinking on hundreds of hands of bridge that I have played.

What I found was that by writing out my thoughts in a clear, cohesive manner so that others can follow them, it forced me to actively think about the problem. It made concepts clear to me that otherwise were slightly fuzzy.

DGM on 6 Jul Edited: DGM on 6 Jul Everyone else here has covered what are arguably the more useful answers. I'm no expert, but I think one point that hasn't been mentioned similar to Stephen's last point was to spend some time to casually become familiar with your tools without the burden of performing a task for others. I was taught to type on a typewriter and came away from all that practice without any practical typing ability. It wasn't until I was motivated to communicate with others in real time online that I learned to type for my own selfish motivations.

Likewise, all the coursework and research I pushed through Matlab hardly taught me much in terms of breadth or depth of familiarity. It wasn't until I started writing my own projects that the challenges felt meaningfully rewarding and I began to find some shreds of confidence. I guess I'm old enough to live with that.

Steven Lord on 1 May Vote 2. Edited: Steven Lord on 1 May