MATLab promotional items?

Hi all, I am a teaching assistant currently teaching a 3rd year civil engineering course on optimization of which MATLab is a significant part of.

It has been my experience during my undergrad years and now that students usually have low interest in learning MATLab due to:

• Steep learning curve in the beginning for non-programmers
• Not realizing how important it is

I do try to 'preach' the importance of MATLab to my students, but there is only so much time in the tutorial.

To encourage my students to keep learning MATLab after the course is over, I'd like to hand out some promotional items with MATLab logo towards the end of the semester in April. If MathWorks is willing to send some, it would be really awesome.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

I love steep learning curves. If you plot learning vs. time, I'd want it to be as steep as possible - meaning a lot learned in a short time. A steep learning curve should make students want to take up MATLAB.

I've always thought MATLAB should have an online store so MATLAB lovers could buy swag (stickers, t-shirts, hats, etc.). Currently you basically have to "earn" them, or be lucky enough to pick up some at a sales event.

[Lianghao Chen]

The phrase 'steep learning curve' never made much sense to me either..lol

Answer 2

[Star Strider]

I would Contact Sales at MathWorks. One possibility is a MathWorks logo decal (if they exist) to put on laptop computers would be something your students could display with pride, or perhaps a mobile phone shell with the logo. (The decals would have to be transferable to other laptops to allow for use on new laptops.) Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Also, include the URL to this Question in your note to MathWorks so you don’t have to repeat everything.

Answer 3

[Image Analyst]

If you have a 3-D printer you can print your own logos.

We just bought an Ender 5 printer. (https://creality3d.shop/collections/ender-series-3d-printer/products/creality3d-ender-5-plus-3d-printer)

We tried to print the MATLAB logo in 3-D in PLA plastic from Ned Gulley’s blog.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/community/2013/06/20/paul-prints-the-l-shaped-membrane/

Ned's print didn't work because one corner part of the logo starts on a really small point and goes out (expands) from there and that just couldn't happen - the printer just put out a curly blob there. So we got a different MATLAB peaks logo print file off the internet that had a solid base and printed that. It came out perfect. Right now we just have turquoise and white filament but perhaps I’ll get some orange to make it look genuine. We can scale the size to whatever size we want. This one is 2 inches (50 mm) square.

Answer 4

[Steven Lord]

We have now opened the MathWorks Merch Shop. See this blog post for more information.