Teaching First-Year Engineering with MATLAB and Simulink

Many educators teach mathematical modeling and programming in first-year engineering courses using MATLAB and Simulink. With MATLAB and Simulink, engineering students can connect to hardware, acquire and read data, create mathematical models, visualize results, and simulate systems.

Using MATLAB Live Editor, educators can create lessons combining explanatory text, equations, code, and graphical output and then share the resulting code examples with students to run and build on. For assessing student performance, MATLAB Grader enables educators to build and share interactive course assignments with students. Problem sets are automatically graded and provide real-time, contextual feedback to students.

Below is a curated list of course curricula, textbooks, and resources for teaching first-year engineering with MATLAB and Simulink.

Course Curricula

• Engineering Models I, Ossman and Bucks, University of Cincinnati (Course I, Course II)
• Discovery-Based Learning, McKnight and Tadmor, Northeastern University
• Engineering Problem Solving, Hsu, Amirtharajah, and Knoesen, University of California, Davis
• Introduction to Engineering Analysis, Bajic, Campi, et al., Simon Fraser University
• Modeling and Simulation of Multi-Physics Systems with MATLAB and Simulink, Liebgott, University of Nice, France
• Introduction to MATLAB Programming, Ossman and Bucks, University of Cincinnati
• MATLAB and Simulink Lab Class (German), Konigorski, Technische Universität Darmstadt (Part 1, Part 2)

Textbooks

• Thinking Like an Engineer
• Introduction to MATLAB
• MATLAB for Engineers
• Engineering Your Future: A Comprehensive Introduction to Engineering
• Engineering Your Future: A Brief Introduction to Engineering
• Introduction to MATLAB zyBook
• MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications
• MATLAB: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving
• MATLAB for Engineering Applications
• MATLAB Programming for Engineers

MATLAB Resources

• MATLAB Onramp (two-hour introductory tutorial)
• Simulink Onramp (two-hour introductory tutorial)
• Stateflow Onramp (two-hour introductory tutorial)
• Teaching with MATLAB (90-minute online course)
• MATLAB Online (use MATLAB in the browser)
• MATLAB Grader (autograde MATLAB coding assignments)
• Problem Collections for MATLAB Grader (including 111 problems on introductory programming)
• Teaching Data Science with MATLAB (resources for teaching undergraduate data science)
• Simulation and Model-Based Design (design and simulate your system in Simulink before moving to hardware)
• MATLAB and Simulink Documentation
• MATLAB and Simulink Examples