BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Winter 2023
SECTION 002
Instructor Information
Course Information
Name: Dr. In-ho Lee
Email Contact: HN6768@wayne.edu
Cell: (734) 730-1675 (prefer text me)
Office Hours:
Time: Monday/Wednesday
4:30 PM – 6:20 PM
Location: Online
CRN: 22602
Teaching Assistant & Peer Mentor Information
Teaching Assistants:
TBD
Graders:
TBD
Course Materials
Pre-requisites:
MAT 2010 (Calculus I)
Required Materials:
No Textbook (Lecture notes are provided every week on Canvas)
MATLAB and Simulink Student Suite (Any version after 2016 is fine)
Should include: Symbolic Math Toolbox & Curve Fitting Toolbox
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_version
Microsoft Excel (free to all WSU students – http://connect.wayne.edu)
Supplemental Texts: A Brief Introduction to Engineering Computation with MATLAB (Chapters
5 – 11) Electronic of PDF version available at
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/a-brief-introduction-toengineering-computation-with-matlab
Computer Programming with Matlab, Electronic or PDF version available
at http://cs103.net.
Physical Modeling in MATLAB by Allen Downey. Linked in study Guides
Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems by Allen Downey.
PDF on Canvas
Chemical and Bio- Engineering Computation and Statistics by Andrew
Paluch. PDF on Canvas
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BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Fall 2022
Course Description:
Use of computational tools, such as Excel and MATLAB, to solve
engineering problems. Topics include general engineering problem
solving, algorithm development, programming, and computational
analysis
Course Objectives
Through successful completion of this course, students will:
1. Develop proficiency in solving engineering problems.
2. Evaluate the quality of proposed solutions to engineering problems.
3. Write formal stepwise algorithms for solving engineering problems.
4. Develop fluency in the MATLAB programming language.
o Create and manipulate vectors and matrices.
o Knowledge of data containers, and how data are transferred between scripts and
functions.
o Apply flow control such as if, else if, switch and case to execute desire code.
o Import data from text files.
o Apply for and while to repetitive calculations.
o Plot 2-dimensional data using plot and/or fplot
o Plot 3-dimensional data.
5. Develop fluency with Microsoft Excel
o Import data from text files.
o Input equations into cells and apply equations across datasets.
o Apply logical tests.
o Plot 2-dimensional data.
o Use built in tools, such as trend line, goal seek and solver.
6. Recognize common programming errors and develop efficient strategies for debugging
code.
7. Present the results of their work through written, oral and electronic communication.
Classroom Policies
You are required to have access to a laptop/desktop that has a working webcam and have Matlab
and Excel installed on it.
Quizzes and exams given during class will also require you to use Matlab and Excel, then submit
the quiz and exam solutions on Canvas.
Expectations for Students



The course materials (lecture notes) will be posted on Canvas, so get familiar with the
materials before each lecture.
Ask questions! This course is designed for students who have no programming
experience; if there is anything you do not understand, just ask!
Please utilize office hours and tutoring hours or schedule appointments to discuss any
material with which you are struggling.
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BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Fall 2022
Grading
A tentative grade distribution and scale are listed below.
Distribution
Homework:
Quizzes:
Project:
Midterm:
Final:
Scale
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
20%
15%
15%
25%
25%
> 94
90.0 - 93.9
86.0 – 89.9
82.0 – 85.9
78.0 – 81.9
74.0 – 77.9
70.0 – 73.9
66.0 – 69.9
62.0 – 65.9
58.0 – 61.9
54.0 – 57.9
< 54.0
If you have any concerns with the grading of an assignment, you must submit a detailed written
explanation to the grader (TBD) within 1 week of receiving the grade in order for the grading to
be reconsidered.
Homework
Homework assignments are worth 20% of your final grade. Assignment due dates will be listed
in Canvas. Solutions to homework assignments are posted shortly after the assignment is
due; therefore, late homework assignments will not be accepted. See the assignment
submission guidelines below for homework submission requirements.
Quizzes
You will have quizzes (Three quizzes) that constitute 15% of your final grade. All quizzes are in
class, and they will require the use of Matlab and Excel. The quizzes are normally 90 minutes
long at Monday’s lecture time. Make-up quizzes will not be allowed unless documented
evidence can be provided for missing a quiz.
Project
There is one project in this class that you will use what you learn from this class to solve a real
problem. It makes up 15% of your final grade. The project is an individual task and the details
will be given after the midterm time.
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BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Fall 2022
Exams
You will have two examinations: one midterm exam and a final. The 2 exams are each worth 25%
of your final grade. As described below, if you are caught cheating on an exam you will
automatically receive an F for the entire course.
Wayne State Final Exam Policy states: “Students are not required to take more than two exams in
one day. A student with more than two scheduled final exams on one day may (not must) petition
to the instructor of the course with the lowest number students enrolled, to arrange an alternate
time for the final exam. Such petitions must be made at least one week prior to the scheduled date
of the final exam.” Check your schedules now and talk to your instructor about adjusting schedules
if needed.
Assignment Submission Guidelines
Any assignment that does not adhere to these requirements will not receive credit. Please talk to
your instructor, a grader, or a GTA if you have any questions about these guidelines.
All Homework, Quizzes, and Exams will be submitted on Canvas. Each submission will consist
of two items, unless a submission has no Matlab or Excel code. If an assignment does not require
any written code, then only one PDF file should be submitted.
All submissions should consist of the following two things:
(1) A single PDF file, named using the convention below, containing your solutions for the
assignment, including all code, command window entries, screenshots of all plots and
graphs, and all other program output. All these items should be placed/copied into a Word
(or similar) file and saved as a PDF.
(2) A zipped folder, containing all source code files (.m file, Excel spreadsheet, etc.) created
for an assignment, named using the convention below, then zipped (compressed) and
submitted as a single zip file.
You must use the following naming convention for all assignment files:
AccessID_Course_Assignment_Question (i.e. EN5364_BE1500_HW1_Q1).
Absences
If you can provide documented evidence for being late or absent (i.e., police report for a traffic
accident, a doctor’s note for illness or injury, death notice for the passing of an immediate family
member, a summons for jury duty), your lateness or absence will not be counted against you. This
same policy applies to making up quizzes, projects, and examinations. You must provide evidence
promptly (i.e. via email within a week) and request to make up the missed work. If you wait until
the end of the semester you will not be able to make up work. Being stuck in traffic and getting
held up at work are not valid reasons for missing class.
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BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Fall 2022
Withdrawal Policy
Please be aware of the following dates and policies. All drop/add activity during the first 4 weeks
should be done through Pipeline. Withdrawals after the end of the 4 th week are also submitted
through Pipeline and only require the permission of the instructor, which is done automatically.
Marks of WP, WF, or WN will be assigned between the end of the 4 th week and the end of the 10th
week. After the last withdrawal date, only a standard letter grade (A to F) can be assigned unless an
Incomplete has been previously arranged.
Students with Disabilities
If you have a documented disability that requires accommodations, you will need to register with
Student Disability Services for coordination of your academic accommodations. The Student
Disability Services (SDS) office is located at 1600 David Adamany Undergraduate Library in the
Student Academic Success Services department. The SDS telephone number is 313-577-1851 or
313-202-4216 for videophone use. Once you have your accommodations in place, I will be glad
to meet with you privately during my office hours to discuss your special needs. Student Disability
Services’ mission is to assist the university in creating an accessible community where students
with disabilities have an equal opportunity to fully participate in their educational experience at
Wayne State University. You can learn more about the disability office at
www.studentdisability.wayne.edu
To register with Student Disability Services, complete the online registration form at:
https://wayne-accommodate.symplicity.com/public_accommodation/
Religious Observance Policy:
Because of the extraordinary variety of religious affiliations of the University student body and
staff, the Academic Calendar makes no provisions for religious holidays. However, it is University
policy to respect the faith and religious obligations of the individual. Students with classes or
examinations that conflict with their religious observances are expected to notify their instructors
well in advance so that mutually agreeable alternatives may be worked out.
Academic Integrity
The College of Engineering has a “zero tolerance” approach to plagiarism and other forms of
academic dishonesty. (See Student Code of http://doso.wayne.edu/assets/codeofconduct.pdf).
Plagiarism includes copying material (any more than 5 consecutive words) from outside texts or
presenting outside information as if it were your own by not crediting authors through citations.
It can be deliberate or unintended. Specific examples of academic dishonesty, including what
constitutes plagiarism, can be found in the University’s Undergraduate Bulletin
(http://bulletins.wayne.edu/ubk-output/index.html)
and
Graduate
Catalog
(http://www.bulletins.wayne.edu/gbk-output/index.html) under the heading “Student Ethics.”
These university policies are also included as a link on Canvas within each course in which
students are enrolled. It is every student’s responsibility to read these documents to be aware
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BE 1500: Introduction to Programming and Computation for Engineers
Fall 2022
which actions are defined as plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Sanctions could include failure
in the course involved, probation and expulsion, so students are advised to think carefully and
thoroughly, ask for help from instructors if it is needed, and make smart decisions about their
academic work.
In this course all code must be your original work. If you take any code, in whole or in part,
from an online source, from a classmate, or from any other person, it is considered cheating. For
quizzes and exams, if you utilize any external source (such as websites, personal notes, etc.) other
than those expressly allowed, it is considered cheating. Contact with other people during an exam
or quiz is also considered cheating. If you use a cell phone or other communication device for any
reason during an exam or quiz it is considered cheating. If you are caught cheating on quizzes: the
first time you will receive a zero for that quiz; for the second time, you will receive a zero for your
overall quiz score; for the third time, you will fail the course. If you are caught cheating on the
final project, you will receive a zero for the project. If you are caught cheating on an exam, you
will automatically receive an F for the entire course. All forms of cheating will be reported and
included in your permanent college record.
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