You just can’t get enough of data. I published this post last month So, some of you reached out and mentioned that the routine I had built was very basic and that you would love a version with some additional dimensions to the data.
Yes, it was very basic indeed. It was fun experiment for a few hours. Having said that, I thought to give the project a few more hours to add some more elements that I would have liked to add. So, I present the v2.0 of the Data Generator routine with Prep.
Again, to understand what we have built here, the videos explaining the generator and how to use it in this post still are relevant.
Just be aware, that we now have additional fields to play with. I have also added instructions directly in the spreadsheet so you know which columns to play with and which ones to leave alone.
So, if you are like me and somehow, happen to have a few hours with no specific task to do, you get itchy. Itchy to do something with tech. That’s what happened today. I had a few hours and someone recently asked to create some dummy data for a project. So, I said to myself, why don’t I create a Data Generator routine using Tableau Prep Builder?
I know I can look at a lot of online data generators that allow me to create custom data. The big issue is they don’t help me create a good story because there is no signal or an outlier in the data.
Well, worry not. In less than 5 minutes, you can create the dataset that you need with your own liking for your own industry.
“R U, R U crazy” said my wife to me, the other day.
“R U R U” were the sounds that we all kept hearing all this weekend at our house. Every one was pacing down the floor as we keep avoiding to crash into each other, while saying “R U R U”
Some of us were audibly loud, while the others were doing it in their head. If you are wondering what I am talking about, it’s about solving the Rubik’s Cube. I had recently written about the fact that our household is trying our hands at new things every week, as many of you have. My wife keeps coming up with new ideas every week, whether it was learning to count upto 20 in various languages when washing hands, or practicing tennis strokes in the garage (somehow) OR, like this week, Rubik’s cube.
Going back to “R U R U”, you will soon see that we used the beginner’s method to solve the Rubik’s cube. This method uses a lot of Right face turns (called R) and Upper face turns (called U) etc. When we needed to make the following movements (Right Upper Right Upper), we would say “R U R U” and so on on. Hence, the title.
Saying it out loud actually helped us remember those steps. So, we suggest that you do a lot of “R U R U” as well. It gets funny, and somehow addictive.
Back to the story about learning the solve the Beginner’s way.
Being a geek myself, when I saw that Rubik’s cube was on the list of things to try this week, I got excited about it and starting watching some YouTube videos that tried to explain the concepts to us.
Unfortunately, most of the videos we found online were trying too hard to keep the length of their videos rather short. The downside was that that sometimes, a key concept was not explained in detail, or assumed. The issue in that case is if you are trying to do this with elementary school kids (like mine), it can get frustrating.
But hey, we got time on our hands and after about 2 days of trying our hands at it, we are all Rubik’s Cube solvers.
Wifey, our 5th and 3rd grade daughters and myself have all learnt to do it. We used the beginner’s method to do this and we don’t need any notes to do it anymore. It’s all in our heads. And, we are going to make it easy for you
Kids are enjoying learning more and helping put more online resources to help other kids. So, we also invested the time in making detailed notes and steps to show you the steps so you can learn it easily.
Here are the series of videos you can watch and join us in the Rubik’s Cube Challenge. All you need is a cube, patience and practice. Hope these videos and notes help. Enjoy!!! Happy Cubing!!!
Understanding the Basics
Step 1: Daisy At Top
Step 2: Flower on Bottom
Step 3: Bottom Corners
Step 4: Edge Pieces on Middle Row
Step 5: Flower on Top
Step 6: Align Edge pieces to the Face Color
Step 7: Corner Colors in Place
Step 8: Solve the Top Face
Enjoy and Happy Cubing.
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Our Data+Kids project continues to move into its 5th week as we learn how to use Tableau to learn about Data
My next post will be about “What does an Algorithm mean to a non techie person?”
So, you are interested in displaying the frequency of a specific type of event over time.
For example, what if each of my orders isn’t making a profit for me and I would like to show the frequency of each of these orders rather than showing the sum total of profit for each week
If I were to show the total of the profit over time, I might show something like this
But, the issue is that this shows the total of the week but doesn’t show the frequency of the loss making orders.
Data Journey 