In a world where the use of technology is essential in almost every intellectual endeavor, professional engineers can upgrade their skills by acquiring knowledge in a programming language. The R statistical software, along with SAS, are arguably the two most popular statistical software on the current market. This course should provide professional engineers with a solid foundation of the basic components of R (and R Studio). The student will learn how to use the R statistical programming language (through RStudio) to develop some basic statistical analyses for engineers. Our end goal is not just to “do stuff” in R, but rather to present the material in a way that anyone can easily replicate in the workplace or for use in individual projects.

Learning Objectives

• Download and install R and RStudio on a desktop or laptop (Mac or Windows).
• Become familiar with the RStudio interface: RScript, Console, History, Plots, and Help.
• Introduce R syntax and coding.
• Use R for simple arithmetic computations.
• Point to relevant information on how to access help in R.
• Create vectors, lists, factors, and matrices, and understand vector arithmetic.
• Identify and be able to use common operators in R.
• Be able to create and work with complex numbers in R.
• Be able to create for loops in R.