Homework 1-2

Due February 12, 2013, 2:25 pm

Reminders

For the following problems you may discuss the concepts that will help solve these problems with classmates and course staff. You may not simply copy down the answers of your classmates as that is a violation of the collaboration policy. The one exception to this rule are those problems marked as “(Independent)”. You may discuss independent problems with course staff only.

Other notes

For this following task, you will be turning in an Excel File and a text file. In the text file please label your answers clearly so that we know which answers go with which question.

Task 1

  1. Look at the above diagram of a baseball diamond. The catcher, lefty, is standing slightly to the third-base side of home plate. Rank all the players by order of increasing distance from Lefty; get out a ruler and use it on your screen or printout if you need. The first two in your list should be Lefty himself (he's distance zero from Lefty) and then Carlos, the pitcher, who is about 90 feet away from him. Write your answers in YourNameHW1-2.txt.
  2. Who is the farthest away from Lefty? Let's say it's player X. Write down a list of all the players, ordered by increasing distance from X, in YourNameHW1-2.txt. Compare this order to the order from the previous question.

Task 2

  1. Download and open HW1-2Starter.xlsx. Look at the formulas in cells C1 through C5. In cell D1, write a formula that's TRUE if A1 is less than 5 or if both A2 and A3 are bigger than 2, but is FALSE otherwise.
  2. In cell D2, write a formula that's TRUE if both A1 equals A2 and A3 does not equal A4. You can use <> to mean “not equals” (so that 5 <> 3 is TRUE), or you can use the NOT function.
  3. In cell D3 write an expression whose value is 7 if either A2 or A3 is positive, and is A5 otherwise.
  4. Save your spreadsheet as YourNameHW1-2.xlsx.

Task 3

  1. We've managed to rank the senators by Sanders-ness in class. The least Sanders-like senator is Ensign. However, Ensign only has a few recorded votes, so we will examine Coburn, the second least Sanders-like senator, instead. Rank the senators by Coburn-ness, using the spreadsheet from class.
  2. How do their ranks compare to their Sanders-ness ranks? Are they exactly the opposite? Why or why not? How is this related to the baseball diamond problem? Write down your answers to these questions in YourNameHW1-2.txt. You do not need to pass in your Coburn-ness spreadsheet.

Task 4

  1. In YourNameHW1-2.txt, please rate how you feel the class is going so far:
    1. Too Slow
    2. Just about right
    3. Too fast
    4. Way too fast
  2. In that same file, tell us how long it took you to finish this homework.

Handin

E-mail YourNameHW1-2.txt and YourNameHW1-2.xlsx to cs0931handin@cs.brown.edu.