# Outline Determine whether MATLAB is for you! During this free, online workshop you will discover the MATLAB environment, learn how to define variables, and perform basic calculations on vectors and matrices. The so-called “Matrix Laboratory” is an interactive and intuitive programming language which can handle large data sets and performs matrix manipulations especially well. MATLAB is popular in Science and Engineering, and is often used by researchers for data analysis and visualisation. To participate in the workshop, you will need: * a computer (or laptop) with internet access and a web browser; * Zoom installed on your computer --- you can download Zoom for free from ; * a Mathworks account --- you can create one using your unimelb credentials here: [https://au.mathworks.com](https://au.mathworks.com/) or follow the instructions on [Accessing MATLAB](/matlab/getting-started/access.md). --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://meirian.gitbook.io/matlab/getting-started/outline.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.