Final Project

Overview

One of the most fun, rewarding, and creative aspects of computation is the ability to take your own ideas and make them a reality – you get to make something that never existed before!

The final project for CS 105 will span the last three lab sections and you will work on your project with a team of peers from your lab section along with your TA.

Week 1 (Nov. 11-13): Forming Groups

In lab, you will pick your own teams of 2-3 students (no groups of 1; no groups of 4+) to work in to complete the Excel lab (Lab #11). As part of the lab, you will submit a sheet of paper to your TA that indicates your team.

Week 2 (Nov. 18-20): Data Sheet and Interesting Facts

Data Set

Before your lab section, your team will find or gather a data set consisting of at least 300 rows of data, where each row contains at least 5 unique columns. In general, the more rows and more columns your data has will make the later parts of the project more interesting.

• This data set must be unique to your team. Each team needs their own data.
• The data set cannot be anything you have seen or used in CS 105.

Overview Sheet

In addition to the data, you must create an Overview sheet as part of your Excel workbook where you have at least one interesting fact per group member that you found about your data using Excel formulas. This interesting fact must require more analysis than a simple arithmetic expression (eg: more than just an AVERAGE or SUM).

You will be required to show your data and interesting facts to your TA and submit your Excel sheet.

Week 3 (Dec. 2-4): Data Simulation – See an Example

Simulation

Before your final lab section, your team must create a Simulation sheet as part of your Excel workbook. This sheet must contain two major components:

1. A simulation using the data from your data sheet and the RAND() (or RANDBETWEEN()) function in Excel. This simulation must produce different, random results every time F9 is pressed.
2. A results section that contains the results of at least 10 runs of your simulation per group member. (This means you must have at least 20 or 30 runs recorded.)

Interesting Observation

Finally, you must add to your Overview sheet at least one interesting observation per group member about the results of your simulation. These observations do not need to contain formulas, but most often do.

You will be required to show your data and interesting facts to your TA and submit your Excel sheet.

Grading

The final project is worth a total of 90 points, where the points are divided in the following way:

• 20 points: Data set (Week #2)
• 20 points: Interesting facts on Overview sheet (Week #2)
• 20 points: Simulation sheet (Week #3)
• 20 points: Interesting observation (Week #3)
• 10 points: Your self/peer evaluation
• Up to -90 points: Evaluation by your peers