Lab 01: Flowcharts, Algorithms, and First MATLAB Steps

Vocabulary flashcards covering the concepts of project development lifecycles, algorithmic thinking, and MATLAB implementation patterns from Lab 01.

SDLC (System and Software Development Life Cycle)

The path from a real need to a working system: understand the problem, capture requirements, design the solution, implement, verify, deploy, and maintain.

BRD (Business Requirements Document)

A document that records what the organization needs in business language, including goals, scope, major rules, and what “done” looks like.

SDS (System and Software Design Specification)

A technical plan that turns business needs into inputs, outputs, structure, algorithms, data, interfaces, and diagrams.

TDD (Test-Driven Development)

A practice where concrete expected behavior is defined before or in tight alternation with code (fail, then pass, then refactor).

Flowchart

A visual way to show order, decisions, repetition, and stopping points, representing the structural ideas that later appear in code.

Pseudocode

A description level between spoken English and real code that helps focus on logic first before syntax and punctuation become a distraction.

Trace Table

A written record of a dry run that records intermediate state for every step or loop index, used as a debugging microscope to see program evolution.

State

Memory of what has happened so far in a program, allowing one iteration to influence the next one.

RAM

The location where temporary working state is stored while a script runs.

Persistent Storage

Storage, such as a generated PNG figure, that survives after the script stops.

Initialization

The starting condition determined for important variables before a loop begins.

Conditional

A branch in logic, usually an if statement, that asks whether a condition is true and then chooses which path to follow.

Loop

Controlled repetition that allows one block of logic to run across a sequence of values.

Maximum Search Pattern

A classic algorithm pattern involving initialization, comparison, and updating stored state as more data arrives.

Threshold Detection

An algorithm pattern, also known as event detection, that asks when a value becomes large or small enough to trigger an action.

First Exceedance

A specific rule in threshold detection that marks the first time a value crosses a limit, which often marks when a system changes behavior.

Moving Average

A local smoothing idea that combines nearby samples to reduce rapid fluctuations, often pictured as a small window sliding across data.

Smoothing Tradeoff

The principle that while filtering reduces noise and makes a signal easier to read, it also blurs sharp changes and hides detail.

Structured Record (struct)

A MATLAB data type used to collect related information (e.g., student ID, marks, and files) into one object to match the engineering story.

Elementwise Multiplication ($.*$)

A MATLAB operator used to multiply corresponding elements of vectors, such as weights and marks, before summation.

Cumulative Sum ($cumsum$)

A mathematical function used in the provided script to compute a moving average more efficiently by using prefix sums.