These Jupyter notebooks provide a self-study introduction to computing with Python. They have been developed for the computing course in Part IA (Michaelmas Term) of the Engineering Tripos at University of Cambridge. This is a first computing course for undergraduate students.
The notebooks can be freely used, shared and modified. See the copyright and license notice below.
If you aren't familiar with the concept of the Command Line, please read this tutorial. nb step 3 on Opening a terminal will vary if you aren't using Linux:
- in Mac you can just open a terminal
- in Windows, you can run "cmd" to load a default terminal until you have installed wsl (more on that below); then just run "wsl".
You will need to understand how to run commands from a command line. Please read this tutorial.
There are many ways to install Python. Below we provide one possible method.
In the DPO:
- Boot into linux. It's set up and ready to go!
Ubuntu:
- It’s fairly likely you will already have Python installed, but it might only have the command python3 available. In order to allow python3 venv’s and alias python to python3, a full set of packages to install might be:
sudo apt install python3 python3-venv python-is-python3
MacOS:
- Install Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
- Run:
brew install python
Windows:
- We recommend using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). During your future career as an engineer, you will need to be comfortable using a Linux/Unix style terminal. WSL allows you to do this from a Windows installation, supported by Microsoft.
- In the Windows Search bar, search for "Turn Windows feature on or off" and open it.
- Enable the "Virtual Machine Platform" and "Windows Subsystem for Linux" (and, if present, "Hyper-V") boxes.
- Click OK and restart your PC when prompted.
- In the Windows search bad, search for
cmd, click “Run as administrator”
- Click “Yes”, when it checks this is ok
- Type in, then hit return:
wsl --install
- Follow the on screen instructions to set up a username and a password.
- Close the Windows command terminal.
- Launch a wsl terminal by typing
wslinto the Windows search bar and run it (click "Open") (remember this step - you will run it everytime you need to start a new wsl terminal).
- To install the relevant dependencies, copy/paste and hit return:
nb the last command will install a lot of dependencies. Confirm by hitting return ([Y/n] means enter "y" for "yes" and "n" for "no", with "Y"=yes as the default answer.)
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python3 python3-venv python-is-python3 python3-pip
In the DPO:
- Boot into linux. It's set up and ready to go!
Ubuntu:
- Already installed by default from Ubuntu 24.04
MacOs:
- (Requires Homebrew, see above.) Run:
brew install git
Windows:
- If using WSL, this will already be installed by default.
You will need to use git to obtain the relevant notebooks. You will use git very often going forwards, this is a good time to learn how to use it! For this course, get into the habit of saving your notebook and pushing the change.
Make an account on GitHub, perhaps using your CRSid as a username.
Either use a Personal Access Token or use SSH keys (you can change your mind later).
If you are using the HTTPS method, GitHub no longer accepts your regular password. Instead, you need to use a Personal Access Token (PAT) as your password.
To generate a PAT:
- In the upper-right corner of any page on GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Settings.
- Click Developer settings:
- Choose Personal access tokens → Tokens (classic), then click Generate new token (classic):
- Check all items (scopes) to grant full access:
- After creating the token, make sure to copy it immediately — GitHub will not show it again:
When prompted for credentials during git push:
- Username: your GitHub username
- Password: the Personal Access Token (PAT) you just created
SSH keys allow remote, encrypted authentication directly between your machine and a server.
To create and upload SSH keys:
- Create a SSH key pair (changing the email address):
You hit ENTER for each question - default file location and empty passphrase (unless you want one)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com" - Upload the SSH public (only) key to GitHub:
- Copy the SSH public key to your clipboard, either by opening the .pub file just created above and copying the contents to the clipboard, or from the terminal:
pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub - In the upper-right corner of any page on GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Settings.
- In the "Access" section of the sidebar, click SSH and GPG keys.
- Click New SSH key or Add SSH key.
- In the "Title" field, add a descriptive label for the new key. For example, if you're using a personal laptop, you might call this key "Personal laptop".
- Set the "Key type" field to "Authentication Key".
- In the "Key" field, paste your public key.
- "Click Add SSH key"
- Copy the SSH public key to your clipboard, either by opening the .pub file just created above and copying the contents to the clipboard, or from the terminal:
Read and boomark this basic introduction to git: https://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/
You will need to make your own private copy of the notebooks, by following these instructions once:
- Create a new repo and mark it private: https://github.com/new e.g. named PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid (replacing the CRSid with yours.)
- Clone the code locally:
git clone --bare https://github.com/CambridgeEngineering/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas - Push a copy of this repo to your private repo:
cd PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas.git- If you set up ssh-keys (changing username and CSRid):
git push --mirror git@github.com:username/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid - Otherwise (changing username and CSRid):
git push --mirror https://github.com/username/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid
- If you set up ssh-keys (changing username and CSRid):
- Remove the original version to avoid confusion:
cd .. rm -rf PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas.git - Clone your private copy on whichever device you need it (e.g. once in the DPO and once on your laptop/college PC), as follows:
- If you set up ssh-keys (changing username and CSRid):
git clone git@github.com:username/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid - Otherwise (changing username and CSRid):
git clone https://github.com/username/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid
- If you set up ssh-keys (changing username and CSRid):
Now and each time you start a new terminal, you will need to change to the directory containing your code, e.g. (changing CSRid):
cd PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas_CSRid
Remember to ensure you are update with any commits before editting (putting any local, unpushed commits to the top):
git pull --rebase
A Python virtual environment, using the venv module, is a lightweight, compartmentalised Python environment with its own independent set of packages. It can be useful in environments whereby you don’t have the ability or desire to add packages globally (e.g. where you might need root access) or for testing to check you have correctly listed your dependencies.
Creating a virtual environment (once per venv instance):
python -m venv venv
nb The second "venv" is the name of the venv, it can be whatever you like
Activating a virtual environment (every time you need to use the venv):
-
WSL/Linux/MacOs (bash/zsh):
source venv/bin/activatenb where "venv" is the name of the venv you chose above.
-
Windows (cmd.exe - nb instruction to install not provided above):
venv\Scripts\activate.batnb where "venv" is the name of the venv you chose above.
Note you should see (venv) (where venv is the name you chose) to the left of your command prompt, so you know your venv has been activated.
You will need several Python packages installed. You can use pip to achieve this within you're virtual environment:
pip install jupyterlab matplotlib numpy python-dateutil ipywidgets scipy numba requests pytest flake8
Within your Python virtual environment:
jupyter-lab
Note the output log, it'll give you a locally hosted web address to load in your browser (on some systems it will open the browser for you automatically).
Under "Notebook" click "Python 3 (ipykernel)", then from the file browser on the left, find the .ipynb file you'd like to work with. Remember to keep saving your changes and then commit and push them to git ("git push" in a command line).
Each notebook covers a topic, with a number of exercises for completion at the end of each notebook. Start with the notebook 00 Part IA Michaelmas Term computing. Model solutions to the exercises are available - contact Flavia Mancini and Jon Bonsor-Matthews to request the solutions.
For each notebook there are a set of exercises in the directory Exercises for completion at end the of each Activity notebook.
These notebooks are maintained at https://github.com/CambridgeEngineering/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas. Please report suggestions or errors at:
https://github.com/CambridgeEngineering/PartIA-Computing-Michaelmas/issues
These notebooks were developed by Garth N. Wells.
Valuable feedback during the development of the notebooks was provided by Quang T. Ha, Hugo Hadfield, Tim Love, Chris Richardson and Joanna Stadnik.
All material is copyright of Garth N. Wells (gnw20@cam.ac.uk).
All text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode).
All computer code is released under the MIT license.
The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2016-2022 Garth N. Wells
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.