ENGR 103 — Week 03: Program Flow: Loops

📖 Weekly Overview

Loops are the engine of data processing. This week we learn to repeat actions efficiently — essential for analyzing the continuous data streams from environmental sensors and biological monitoring systems.

🎯 Learning Objectives

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

Write while and for loops with proper termination
Use accumulator variables to compute statistics
Apply break for early loop exit
Iterate over strings and use nested loops for 2D data

📚 Required Reading

Guttag, "Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python" (3rd Ed)
Week 03 Reading: Ch 2.5–2.8
Complete before the first lecture of the week.

📅 This Week's Schedule

Monday: Monday: While loops and accumulators
Friday: Friday: For loops, range(), and nested loops.

🔬 Studio 1 (this week): Environmental monitoring with loops

✅ Assignments Due This Week

Week 03 Quiz — Due Sunday 11:59 PM on Canvas (15 questions, 15 pts)
Week 03 Assignment — Due Sunday 11:59 PM on Canvas (3 coding problems)
Studio 1 (this week): Environmental monitoring with loops — During studio session

🔗 Resources

Lecture slides available on Canvas before each class
Textbook: Guttag Ch 1 available free at MIT OpenCourseWare
Python documentation: docs.python.org
Office hours: Check Canvas calendar for times and Zoom/room info
Course Piazza: Post questions (anonymously if preferred)