Software

We will be using a custom Python package named resonance during the class to investigate a variety of mechanically vibrating systems. Resonance is an open source software package developed by the instructors and is built on top of the Scientific Python ecosystem of software packages.

The documentation for resonance can be found at:

http://resonance.readthedocs.io

The rendered Jupyter notebooks that are used in class can be found at:

https://moorepants.github.io/resonance/

Finally, the source code for resonance can be found at:

https://github.com/moorepants/resonance

Running The Software

The easiest, and preferred method, of running the software is to log into http://bicycle.ucdavis.edu with your UCD email address to access our JupyterHub server. You can then either create a new terminal session or a "Python 3" Jupyter notebook. We will primarily be using Jupyter notebooks in class.

Backing Up Your Work

The JupyterHub server has an automated backup in place should any problems occur, but it is recommended to regularly back up your own work. To do so, open a terminal from the JupyterHub interface (go to New -> Terminal). From this terminal window, type backup-home. This will find all of your files and put them in a zip file called backup.zip, which you should then be able to see and download from JupyterHub interface. Any time you want to back up your work, you can run this command again from the terminal and it will add any new or changed files to the zip file on the server (you have to download it to your own computer each time).

Installing the Software On Your Personal Computer

If you want to run the software locally on your own computer, you can install the same packages that we have on the server. We recommend that you first install the Anaconda distribution of Python which includes most all of the packages you will need.

With this, you can open up either Jupyter notebooks or use the Spyder IDE (which also can open notebooks).

Currently, you will need to install resonance via the command line tool conda. Open a terminal on Mac OSX or Linux or an Anconda Command Prompt on Windows and type:

conda install -c conda-forge resonance

To upgrade resonance as we release new versions, type:

conda update -c conda-forge resonance

This can also be done via Anaconda Navigator if you add the conda-forge channel.

Learning Python For Engineering Computation

These are my recommended resources:

Each software package also has documentation:

For beginning Python, I recommend ThinkPython by Allen Downey.

There are thousands of other online resources that cover the full spectrum of using Python for scientific and engineering computing.

Example Notebooks

To get an idea of what you can do with Jupyter notebooks, here are some examples: