Teaching Computer Programming Skills To First Year Engineering Students Using Fun Animation In Matlab

This paper describes an approach to teach computer programming concepts to first-year engineering students. The environment of choice is Matlab, and the teaching method consists of requiring the students to create a project in which they will code a computer game with the use of functions that are provided to them. The gaming aspect of the project generates a high level of fun which enhances the learning process. The project is one of the four modules that Engineering Freshmen work on while taking their two Introduction to Engineering Systems courses. It spans half a semester, and, unlike the other three group-based projects, is individually-based. Matlab provides a wide range of animation tools and functions that allow a user to create very nice animation and games. Mastering those tools however is not a task for the novice, and would be too overwhelming for an introduction to computer programming module. The approach presented here raises the level of abstraction for the student so that he/she will not have to deal with the lower-level details of Matlab’s animation tools, but instead focus on the problem itself, and thereby develop the proper programming skills and learn important concepts such as selection, iteration, arrays, etc.