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College of EngineeringEngineering Education Innovation Center

Problem Solving with Excel

Class Preparation

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What Excel is…

• Excel is a tool for…

1. storing, organizing, manipulating, and analyzing data

2. tabular and graphical representation

3. obtaining numeric solutions• It is an important problem solving tool

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How does Excel relate to problem solving?

Recall the five steps of the Problem Solving Method:

DefineRepresentPlanImplementEvaluate

Excel gives us many tools to use at each phase of the method after we have defined the problem. Let’s take a look at some of tools and functions Excel provides…

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60 63 67 70 73 77 80 83 87 90 93 97 1000

2

4

6

8

10Grade Distribution

on Final Exam

Exam Score

Fre

quency

Table 1: Pipe Roughness ChartMaterial Manning's n

Bell & Spigot Joints 0.012Clay or Concrete Tile 0.013corrugated plastic (CPT) 0.016PVC 0.009smooth wall PE 0.012Tongue & Groove Joints 0.012

2. Represent

Tabular Format Histograms

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2. Represent (con’t)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2z = -7x2+7x+4y2+4y

y-axis

z-a

xis

3D Surfaces Flowcharts

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3. Plan

Sort & Filter

Sort function • Can be used to arrange data in

ascending or descending order• It can help you organize data so

you can use it more efficiently• Press F1 in Excel and search

“sort” for more help

Filter function• Can be used to extract certain

data of interest • Press F1 in Excel and search

“filter” for more help

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Excel Hierarchy

Excel Hierarchy• Excel allows you to have a

number of worksheets in the same workbook.

• Like cell referencing within a worksheet, you can reference a cell in other worksheets of the same workbook

• Use the following format – SheetName!CellAddress

3. Plan (con’t)

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Cell Referencing• A cell reference identifies the location of a cell in the spreadsheet• A cell reference consists of the column letter and row number that

intersect at the cell's location• Cell references are used in formulas, functions, charts, and other

Excel commands• These can be replaced by names which help identify their content.

3. Plan (con’t)

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Cell Referencing

You can give cells descriptive names to use in your formulas

The Name Box displays the address of the selected cell. You can rename any cell for better readability.

3. Plan (con’t)

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Cell Referencing

Here, we renamed cell B2 as 'mass', because it stores the value for mass.

We can also rename cell B3 as 'force'.

3. Plan (con’t)

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Cell Referencing

Now we can type in the equation referencing the cells by their new names, instead of their alphanumeric address.

3. Plan (con’t)

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Many Mathematical, Trigonometric and Statistical functions are available for finding numerical solutions.

4. Implement

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Logical Functions• Logical Functions can be used to introduce decision making into

your spreadsheet. There are 6 main logical functions:

IF, AND, OR, NOT, FALSE, TRUE

• The AND function returns TRUE if all arguments are true, and returns FALSE if one or more arguments are false. Let’s look at an example…

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AND Function: Example Given Information:

Cell A1 contains a value of 86, cell B1 contains a value of 89.

The following AND function is typed in cell B3:

= AND(A1>85,B1<88)

After hitting the enter key, cell B3 will display:

FALSE

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IF Function• The IF function evaluates a statement and produces a result based on

whether certain conditions are ‘true’ or ‘false’.• The user can specify different results to display for these conditions.

– When the IF function evaluates a condition as true, the function will display the user’s desired ‘true’ result in the cell.

– When the IF function evaluates a condition as false, the function will display the user’s desired ‘false’ result in the cell.

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IF Function: Example 1Given Information: Cell A2 contains a value of 105

The following IF function is typed in cell A3:

=IF(A2<=100, "Within budget", "Over budget")

After hitting the enter key, cell A3 will display:

Over Budget

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IF Function: Example 2Given Information: Cell B2 contains a value of 98

The following IF function is typed in cell B3:

= IF(B2<=100, "Within budget", "Over budget")

After hitting the enter key, cell B3 will display:

Within budget

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Nested IF Function• To check for more than one

condition a nested IF function can be used

• Here, we use a nested IF function in the column of “Letter Grade” to assign a letter grade based on test score. The formula below is copied to all cells in this column.

=IF(SCORE>90,"A",IF(SCORE>80,"B",IF(SCORE>70,"C")))

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Statistical functionsConditional formatting helps

interpret results

5. Evaluate

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• Conditional Formatting is a tool that allows you to apply formats to a cell or range of cells depending on the value of the cell or the value of a formula.

• It can be used to change cell color, cell font, border setting to help users easily interpret results.

• For example, you can have a cell appear in bold when its value is greater than 1000.

Conditional Formatting Logic

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50 Bolt diameters were measured • Conditional Formatting will be used to indicate values

that are out of tolerance• Tolerances are the minimum and maximum allowable

deviation from the ‘nominal’ or expected value• Use slide 22-28 to guide you through this example

Conditional Formatting Example

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Question:Which samples are out of tolerance?

Hint:Note the nominal diameter and associated tolerance

Conditional Formatting Example

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Data with Conditional Formatting

With conditional formatting, Excel highlights the results so they are easily seen.

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24

How to use Conditional Formatting

1. Select the group of cells 2. Choose an appropriate rule under the “Conditional Formatting” Tool. [Conditional Formatting -> Highlight Cells Rules ->Greater Than…]

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Step 1 – Greater Than

Apply formatting to values greater than the nominal diameter plus tolerance.

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Step 2 – Less Than

This time identify values less than the minimum size.[Conditional Formatting -> Highlight Cells Rules ->Less Than…]

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Step 2 – Less Than

Apply formatting to values less than the nominal diameter minus tolerance

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Final Result

The data points highlighted in red are out of tolerance.

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• Excel is a tool for…– storing, organizing, manipulating, and analyzing data– tabular and graphical presentation– obtaining numerical solutions

• It is an important problem solving tool

Summary