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University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

School of Mechanical, Industrial & Aeronautical Engineering
MECN2003: Software Development
Laboratory 5: MatLab 1
Students are to work in pairs and submit the finished lab via WebCT by 0800 the morning
following the tutorial.
A program is required that can determine the correctness of a uniform distribution of an array
of random numbers between 0 and 1. Theoretically, if numbers are distributed evenly between
0 and 1, the proportion of values less than a tested percentage will be equal to that percentage
e.g. 25% of the numbers will be smaller than or equal to 0.25 (i.e. 25%). In the event of a finite
array of values this condition is not met as accurately since the low number of values to be tested
would mean that a single number makes a significant difference to the proportion meeting the
specified criterion e.g. if there are 8 numbers in the array, each number represents 12.5% of the
array. The required program must determine the number of values in the an array suplied by the
user meeting a user-defined criterion and hence determine the proportion of the total array this
represents. Finally, this proportion must be reported to the user. Use of command line input and
output is permitted. The array supplied may be generated using the MatLab funtion rand.
Bonus marks will be awarded for elements of the code which improve the robustness / flexibility
thereof such as input checking and re-entry of information if it is incorrect in format or such.
Programs are to be submitted via the Blackboard / Ignite interface. Students must submit only
their program file named MatLab1Groupn.m, where n is their group number on the MECN2003
Ignite page. [20 Marks + 2 Bonus Marks]