Introduction

Here are slides for today's introductory lecture: Click here for slides.

Class will be shortened today due to a weather related university closing. This assignment should take you 5 minutes. Its purpose is to test the computer resources and make sure everything is running so we can get to work on Thursday, January 29.

Open MATLAB. Type

A = randn(10000,1);
hist(A,100)

You should see a bell curve histogram. Open PowerPoint. Open "Grab" under "Utilities" in the "Finder Window" under the Applications Tab. Take a screenshot of the bell curve with Grab. Drop into PointPoint. Use Text tools to sign your name. Save.

• Homework 1: Email me your PowerPoint with the screenshot. You may want to add the Bonus Point Problem, below.

• Bonus Point for Homework 1 (One extra point): Be creative! OK, with what I have given you so far there is not much you would know to do. But there were three numbers in the two command listed in the box above. Try changing one or all of them and see what happens. Add another screen shot to your PowerPoint. Be sure to communicate what you did and what you think the effect was with a text box.