Utilising data
This week we will be focusing on how to record, present and use maths to analyse data to help us make decisions. But first, why does data matter to us as engineers?
Recording data
So, data helps us to make decisions and to answer questions, but if we don’t record it properly it will end up being meaningless. Watch this video to see an example of how to record data clearly.
Presenting data
Now we know how to record data, we have built a strong foundation for being able to use it however we want to. But one of the key things we will need to do, as engineers, is communicate whatever we find out to other people. The next video discusses how to make sure your data is well presented.
Analysing data
Sometimes it is enough just to present the figure to our audience (maybe we present it to our team and then jointly analyse it), but sometimes we need to do the analysis for the audience (maybe manager just wants the answer to the question as quickly as possible). This final video shows some examples of how maths is used to analyse data to extract key information from it.
Want to find out more?
This video shows an American professor talking through one of his logbooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv3i_aQp4Ug. How does your logbook compare? What other examples of logbooks can you find? Which style suits you best? Is there anything missing from your logbook that you should start to add? Have a look at the data presentation on this website: https://informationisbeautiful.net/. Why do you think the authors chose each style? Which do you prefer? How else could you present any of these sets of data?
If you want to see how Excel finds the coefficients of the line of best fit, this series of videos shows the derivation (partial derivatives included!): https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability/describing-relationships-quantitative-data/more-on-regression/v/squared-error-of-regression-line