The first part of this course will focus exclusively on the core theory and manual calculations required to design reinforced concrete. In this way, the course follows a somewhat traditional path; we’ll introduce the core theory and mechanics and then work through some design exercises with pen and paper. If Python scripting doesn’t interest you, no problem! Simply focus on the first part of the course, and you’ll have covered all of the reinforced concrete content.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in sprinkling some Python magic over your manual calculations, you’ll want to stay tuned for the final section of the course. Once the theory has been covered in the first four sections of the course, we’ll focus on automating some of the calculations from this part of the course.

Much like other EngineeringSkills courses, we’ll use Python within a Jupyter Notebook environment to do this. You don’t need any Python background knowledge to complete this part of the course, just some patience and a willingness to learn.

Getting started with Python

If you're new to Python, your first task will be to get a development environment up and running. I've covered this in previous courses, so at this point I send you on a short detour to those lectures...

• Start here with Our Approach to Python, everything I say there, also applies here.

• Then work through Getting started with Jupyter Notebooks.

• And finally, make the jump to Jupyter Lab, the environment I currently recommend, by watching, Moving to JupyterLab.