This details instructions for the use of our growth modeling tool. 
For this tutorial we use data files that can be found in the folder "Raw data growth modeling - experimental cycle 1".

You need to install Matlab. We used version 2025a, but we expect it should work in any version.

You need to install the additional toolboxes called "Optimization toolbox" and the "Statistics and machine learning toolbox". 
If you do not know to do it, don't worry. Running the code for the first time will ask you to install "Optimization toolbox".
Running it again will ask you to install the "Statistics and machine learning toolbox".

Once everything is installed you can run the code from the "Editor" tab seen at the top.
It might ask you to change folder to the where the file of the code is located. Click "Change folder".

The software will then ask you names for the figures and y-axis. You can fill this in yourself depending on the experiment.

Then the software will ask you to provide the file with the growth data. We provided you our raw data. 
You can for example try selecting the file "PlateReader_data_exp1". If you select an excel file with multiple sheets it will ask you which one to use. 
For the case of the tutorial select "Bacteria".

Then the software will ask you to provide a file with the plate layout. We provided you our plate lay outs, based on the question you want to ask.
The relevant plate layout for studying the bacterial growth is called "Plate Layout Exp 1 Bacteria", select this one for the tutorial.

Then the programme will run for a couple minutes. It will open a figure at first, this is used to later plot the figures and SHOULD NOT BE CLOSED.

After a couple minutes you will see the command box of Matlab say it is trying to save ANOVA data. It will give error messages, but these do not impact results.
Wait until everything is saved.

Congratulations! You just fit growth models to data!