Application of Scilab in teaching of engineering numerical computations

Numerical Computation Lecture focusing on understanding the fundamental mathematical concepts and mastering problem-solving skills using numerical methods is an important lecture in colleges whose knowledge are hard to understand and master for most students. Scilab, famous open-source scientific computation software, can be used to test algorithms or to perform numerical computations. Scilab also provides many numerical methods and is very easy to use even for people without prior programming experience. This article mainly discusses how to apply Scilab in the lecture of engineering numerical computation to make the learning easy and practical. Students should be able to solve similar engineering computations problems immediately after taking the class using the Scilab codes we provide in class. For most students and particularly non-math majors understanding how to use numerical tools Scilab correctly in solving their problems of interest is more important than studying lengthy proofs and derivations.