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Need Excel exercise

A

amdx

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a 14 year old learning to use Excel. She's made me a couple
of simple templates to track expenses for a small business. What I'd
like is a problem where she has some data and she needs to figure out
some math to provide some other columns of data. Then possibly graph
the output.
I'd like to keep it related to electronics.

Thanks, Mike
 
amdx said:
I have a 14 year old learning to use Excel. She's made me a couple
of simple templates to track expenses for a small business. What I'd
like is a problem where she has some data and she needs to figure out
some math to provide some other columns of data. Then possibly graph
the output.
I'd like to keep it related to electronics.

Try gnumeric, kCalc ..?
More freedom, less data lockin.
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a 14 year old learning to use Excel. She's made me a couple
of simple templates to track expenses for a small business. What I'd
like is a problem where she has some data and she needs to figure out
some math to provide some other columns of data. Then possibly graph
the output.
I'd like to keep it related to electronics.

Time sheet. A list of tasks per row in the first column, with columns for
start time, end time, total time, hourly rate, and $/task, summed at the
bottom, for $/week or whatever.

Doing arithmetic in hours and minutes should be instructive. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich
 
K

Keith

Jan 1, 1970
0
Time sheet. A list of tasks per row in the first column, with columns for
start time, end time, total time, hourly rate, and $/task, summed at the
bottom, for $/week or whatever.

Doing arithmetic in hours and minutes should be instructive. ;-)

Not tough at all, just define the cells as number:time and do
normal cell manipulation. If the time can span midnight simply
pick a time format with the date in it.
 
T

Tom Bruhns

Jan 1, 1970
0
amdx said:
I have a 14 year old learning to use Excel. She's made me a couple
of simple templates to track expenses for a small business. What I'd
like is a problem where she has some data and she needs to figure out
some math to provide some other columns of data. Then possibly graph
the output.
I'd like to keep it related to electronics.

I use Excel for lots of simple and some not-so-simple electronics
calcs. One nice one for her to do would be the impedance of a resonant
circuit versus frequency. You can make that as complicated as you
like, or as simple as a pure inductance and capacitance. On the
complicated end, you could have two coupled resonant circuits, though
the math may get a bit messy for a 14-yo. It could be an exercise in
using the complex math capabilities of Excel (ugh!!) if you wanted.

Looking at some of my old ones... I have one that I used for comparing
the errors in estimating sine(theta) using a few different simple
methods. One column is theta, the next is the reference accurate
value, and following pairs are various methods and the error relative
to the reference value. You can plot them, too, and have rows for the
largest positive and negative errors in each column. -- most of my
others deal with statistical info like the results of testing a number
of units (many results for each unit), and plotting how producible each
parameter is.

Cheers,
Tom
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
I use Excel for lots of simple and some not-so-simple electronics
calcs. One nice one for her to do would be the impedance of a resonant
circuit versus frequency. You can make that as complicated as you
like, or as simple as a pure inductance and capacitance. On the
complicated end, you could have two coupled resonant circuits, though
the math may get a bit messy for a 14-yo. It could be an exercise in
using the complex math capabilities of Excel (ugh!!) if you wanted.

Looking at some of my old ones... I have one that I used for comparing
the errors in estimating sine(theta) using a few different simple
methods. One column is theta, the next is the reference accurate
value, and following pairs are various methods and the error relative
to the reference value. You can plot them, too, and have rows for the
largest positive and negative errors in each column. -- most of my
others deal with statistical info like the results of testing a number
of units (many results for each unit), and plotting how producible each
parameter is.

Cheers,
Tom

I've found the book...

"A Guide to Microsoft Excel for Scientists and Engineers"
Bernard V. Liengme, J W Arrowsmith Ltd, Bristol, 1998
ISBN 0 340 69265 0
ISBN 0 470 23775 9 (Wiley)

quite helpful.

...Jim Thompson
 
T

The Real Andy

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a 14 year old learning to use Excel. She's made me a couple
of simple templates to track expenses for a small business. What I'd
like is a problem where she has some data and she needs to figure out
some math to provide some other columns of data. Then possibly graph
the output.
I'd like to keep it related to electronics.

Try gnumeric, kCalc ..?
More freedom, less data lockin.[/QUOTE]
Less users worldwide. Less employment opportunites. Makes sense to me.

How about mapping power usage in the house or something like that.
Time the lights are on and off, work out the expenditure based on the
bulbs power rating. Not quite electronics, but physics based. Get the
whole family involved, writing down when they switch a light on or
off.
 
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