Thursday, December 12, 2013

What Am I Eating? Excel Final Project






 What Am I Eating?  Excel Final Project  

Ever wonder how much fat is contained in the food that you eat?  There are some pretty neat calculators that we can access online to help us track the nutrition and not so nutritious contents of a whole host of foods that we eat.  


WebMD.com Food-O-Meter

One, in particular is available at WebMD.com.  It's called the WebMD Food-O-Meter.  Another great nutritional site is FatSecret.com  You can use these sites to get the nutritional data that you will need to complete this project.

You can find a link with directions for the Excel part of this project on the online Google Drive at What Am I Eating_Excel Sample Just click on the link. 


Instructional Video Tutorials - click on the links below:

Final Project Intro - overview

Step 1 - How to select 10 foods for the final project

Step 2 - How to set up the Excel table 

Steps 3, 4 and 5 - How to sort a table and create a stacked bar chart
                           using Excel

Step 6 - How to convert calories to pounds; how to calculate your Daily Target Caloric Intake (DTCI) to maintain your current body weight level.


Step 7 - Getting to know Food Groups; create a list of 10 healthy foods.



Your grade for this project will be based on your answers to Steps 1 -7 in this  packet, the spreadsheet and the 1-page paper you will type.  You should save your spreadsheet as WhatAmIEating_FirstNameLastName.xls, and your typed answers, including the 1-page document as WhatAmIEating_FirstNameLastName.doc and send them to me via Gmail at rwiegs@gmail.com     This project will represent half your grade for the next marking period.



Sunday, December 8, 2013

4 Formulas You Should Know Cold





Here is the link for the Excel spreadsheet entitled
4 Formulas You Should Know.

1) Percentage Change (% delta) = (New - Old)/ Old

2) % Markup = Old x (1 + % MrkUp)

     % Discount = Old x (1 - % Discount)

3) FV = PV x (1 + r ) ^t

4) PV = FV /(1 + r)^t

Please click on the link and complete the exercises in the example section.  Send your answers as an attached file saved as Excel4Formulas_FirstNameLastName_Date.xls to my Gmail address at rwiegs@gmail.com









Remember to ask for help if you need to solve these problems.  -R.Wiegand

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Excel Future Value - Compounding Revisited



In the Penny Puzzle exercise, we saw how a penny that doubles each day for a month can amount to some serious cashish.   Did you know that there's a formula that investors use to calculate the future value of an investment that grows at a continual rate?  It's called (not surprisingly), the Future Value formula, or FV.
The equation for FV is as follows:

             FV = PV x (1 + r) ^t               

             where PV is the original amount of money invested (what you start with),
             r is the growth rate over time (usually a yearly or annual growth rate),
             and t is the number of periods that the investment compounds at (usually # of years)
     
    1) Can you write an Excel formula that will calculate the End of Day $ value on the last day of 
        the month (i.e. May 31st) in the case of the penny puzzle?            

In the real world, however, investments never have such alarming growth rates.  If ever you should come across an investment opportunity that promised you those kind of returns, you should probably run fast because it's more likely to be a scam than legitimate. 

In practice, annual investment returns are more likely to be anywhere from 2% - 10%.  Home prices (i.e. real estate), has historically shown growth rates of around 4% (without a mortgage) to about 15% with a mortgage - in stable economic conditions.   

Meanwhile, traditional investment allocations for retirement accounts typically get anywhere from 5% - 11%  
    2)   Let's try to calculate how much your investment in a home would be over 20 years, assuming 
          a growth rate of 6%.  Here's what the spreadsheet might look like:


Can you graph the value of your home over the course of these 20 years?
And, can you come up with a formula cell that can come up with the same answer as in the long method? 

    3)   Finally, let's calculate the Future Value of an investment of $10,000 that earns 7% per year for 40 years.  Can you come up with a one-cell calculation for this using the FV formula?



And that's it.  You've just completed the Excel compound growth or Future Value assignment.
Remember to Save Your Spreadsheet  using File/Save As     ExcelFV_FirstNameLastName     and attach it to a GMail that you will send to me at rwiegs@gmail.com 
Remember, if you get stuck with creating the table in Excel or whatever, please ask for help.  You can also come by during lunch period for one-one-one or small group assistance.

   

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Internet Research Detective - Mission 4

        
Internet Research Detective – Mission 4
        
Brick and mortar vs. Online Retail Sales

Your mission is to research the growing importance of online retail sales vs. traditional brick and mortar sales.  Please note which web sites or online sources you used to do your research.  A good site for MLA format is http://www.easybib.com/

1)    Use the table below to record your answers and observations:      


Brick and Mortar Sales
Online Sales
Definition


Advantages


Disadvantages 


$ Value of Sales in 2013


% of Sales Overall in 2013



Sources used (MLA format) : 

      2)    Do you think that online sales will ever over-take traditional brick and mortar sales in terms of the total $ value of sales in any given year?  Why or why not?




    3) After viewing the Amazon drone delivery system video and considering the potential for 
    this technological development to assist online sales companies as well as companies in 
    various industries, do you think this technology has a future in the real world?  Which 
    companies would this technology benefit most?  Briefly explain why or why not.


Copy and paste these questions into a Word document file.  Then save your work as OnlineSales_FirstNameLastName.doc and g-mail it to me at  rwiegs@gmail.com     Don’t forget to Cc yourself (send it to your own e-mail address as well) as evidence that you submitted the work to me.