Bringing Matlab into the acoustics class

Abstract

The Catholic University of America has a history of graduate education in acoustics that ranges back to the 1930s. Many of the students served by CUA have been and continue to be working professionals in careers related to acoustics. Over time, we have observed that many of our students come to us having developed an impressive depth of knowledge in their specialty. However, some of these students have little of the formal acoustics training needed to provide broader context. This presentation will discuss teaching practices designed to serve this cohort as well as more traditional graduate students. We create an experiential learning environment that capitalizes on the fact that many simple but powerfully instructive measurements can be made with now ubiquitous items. All modern laptops have both speakers and a microphone. A laptop, coupled with a library of MATLAB code, gives students the opportunity to explore many important topics. This presentation includes examples from room acoustics, musical acoustics, and elastic wave propagation.