Introduction to computational data analysis, numerical methods, and visualisation as applied to physical and chemical systems, analysis of experimental data, Monte Carlo numerical experiments, image processing, and geographic information systems (GIS).
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Year Taken: AY20/21, Sem 1
Grade: AWow looking back… what a journey! Hours spent at the computer lab and walking back to hall at 4am… For someone who has never coded in his life, this course was an absolute brain bender.
Continuous Assessment (50%) | ~ >80%?
These are your weekly lab assignments that you should try to finish as soon as possible because you’re 1)left on your own on weekends and 2) weekends are for GIS anyways…
Final Project and Presentation (30% + 10%) | Prof Benoit liked it so I guess at least a A-?
Here’s the fun part, you’re suppose to work in groups of 4, on any research question under the sun as long as: 1) What is taught in the past 10+ weeks is used and 2) You can find sufficient data for the project. Kaggle is your best friend!
Ok yes the legendary Pokémon project. Every year, Prof Benoit invites the best team of the previous year to present to the juniors. For our year, our seniors did a project on how Pokémon types will interact with each other in real life and if they lived in Japan (Think comparing online stats like type, power, popularity etc. and using the DEM of japan as a giant WWE ring for the Pokémon’s to fight in). Needless to say, the entire class changed their research question on the spot and everything from then went from 0 to 100 immediately. For my group, we went from researching gun violence in US/ dengue cases in SG to… you guessed it, The evolution of Art. Honestly, its just the ‘Pokémon Project’ with extra steps, only we stopped short at making paintings/artists battle each other (although it did cross our minds).
Prof Benoit was pretty amazed that we somehow managed to make matlab produce paintings that he got Prof Anna to feature us in ASE’s newsletter. SO, to the dear juniors reading this, if you do see us as special guests… Well, I jut hope your class decides not to be too competitive!
PS. I also think I broke 2 computers from the lab just processing the sheer amount (10000?) of image data we have…
Class participation is 10% so if you answer some questions during class and not leave Prof Benoit hanging, you should be alright.
This review was reposted with the kind permission of Roy. Originally published at https://djtangent.wordpress.com/2021/04/02/eess-y2s1-2020/
June 11, 2021
