A Learning Resource to Acquire Engineering Skills through Programming Languages

AbstractIn Science and Engineering studies, MATLAB is one of the preferred tools for scientific computing. Even though the learning curve of MATLAB is moderate, students at the first courses of the new Bologna degrees usually find some difficulties when trying to apply their knowledge of this software package to other technical subjects. With that problem in mind, the University of Salamanca (Spain) developed an application that allows students to learn basic programming concepts and, at the same time, to solve several typical problems that appear in subjects like Electric Circuits or Mechanic Vibrations. The proposed tool was implemented using MATLAB and Visual Basic, as this programming language offers the possibility to create attractive and easy to use graphical interfaces