Focus The schedule for the Lake Tahoe course is designed to have the afternoons open for those who like to ski. There is an early morning workshop from 7:00 a.m. to Noon (Monday - Friday), followed up by an evening workshop from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. (Monday - Thursday).
Spreadsheets have become a valuable and powerful engineering tool. They now provide capabilities to create graphical user interfaces (GUI’s), command other languages such as FORTRAN, C and Visual Basic and dynamically link to an increasing array of other computer-aided engineering tools. The GUI capability of Excel allows engineers to create windows like applications (icon driven) but with minimum effort. Excel allows engineers to redefine "back of the envelope" calculation and push it to new limits. This is accomplished by interface capabilities with other languages, third party Excel Add-ins, VBA and a design optimization tool called Solver. Excel provides an environment for command, control and communication of engineering projects of all disciplines to more effectively create and build applications devoted to their specific needs.
Course Description The modular nature of the Excel Spreadsheet working environment is used to establish a platform for performing engineering system design, analysis, and optimization. General engineering system applicability is emphasized by making use of the basic elements of numerical analysis. This approach leads to methodologies, which are applicable to any engineering system. Participants are led through a structured approach to systems design, with the basic principle of object-oriented programming introduced along the way. The elements of Visual Basic Programming are introduced while learning to extend the capability of working on the worksheet. This involves learning how to recognize objects, object properties and methods when working on the worksheet. Graphical User Interfaces are first introduced to modularize and control inputs and input range limits using Active X controls. After maximizing the capability of the worksheet, the course moves on to develop Visual Basic Application procedures. Techniques are introduced for spreadsheet architecture and communication for large-scale systems engineering. Please visit www.spreadsheetworld.com for a complete outline.
Instructor Tom R. Mincer, Ph.D., Founder and President of SpreadsheetWorld, Inc. (www.spreadsheetworld.com) and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, California State University, Northridge (CSUN). Dr. Mincer is widely recognized as an early pioneer in the extensive use of Excel, VBA and FORTRAN DLLs in engineering. In 1985, he initiated extensive use of Excel into the curriculum at CSUN by integrating it into the courses on systems design, computational methods and computer-aided-engineering. For the past 15 years he has worked extensively in the areas of systems design, simulation and optimization using the Excel Structured Spreadsheet environment. In 1995, he extended his efforts to industry by launching his popular hands-on workshop on Spreadsheet Aided Engineering, which has now been taught 210 times to engineers from over 100 companies worldwide. Alumni from these workshops exceed 3,000 engineers. This workshop is offered on a regular basis at over 50 companies. Dr. Mincer founded SpreadsheetWorld to extend the training services to include development of new and commercialization of existing Excel/VBA Toolboxes, and services to enhance the implementation of the best practices and methods taught in his workshops.
Key Topics The participants in this workshop will learn how to use Excel and VBA to:
