Elementary computer physics, a concentrated one-week course

A concentrated one-week course (8 hours per day in 5 days) in elementary computer physics for students in their freshman university year is described. The aim of the course is to remove the constraints on traditional physics courses imposed by the necessity of only dealing with problems that have simple analytic solutions. Thus it will be shown that insight into the solutions of rather complex problems can be gained by numerical experimentation and that expensive laboratory experiments may be simulated by computer experiments. A harmonic oscillator, a charge in crossed electric and magnetic fields, and a lunar space vehicle are used as examples.