Skip to main content

Start Feltron

This is crazy: it starts at about 20 micrometers across... that's 1/500 of a centimeter. I think it's zooming in on the eye of a mite.


Anyway, the data I have been collecting on myself is health-related. Since Poppy was born, I have been trying to keep better care of my body. I want to make sure I am eating right and exercising enough. High cholesterol and related health problems, like strokes and heart attacks, run in my family, and I don't want that to happen for a while.


I wasn't approaching health logically: I didn't like to hear that some things I was doing weren't healthy. I ignored advice from my doctor, and told myself I was exercising a lot and eating right. But I didn't really know that, because I didn't have any information. Just a vague picture of what "eating healthy" is, and sort of thinking about what I ate. Once I stopped being defensive, I realized that it was time for data collection.

Here is a spreadsheet of the last few months: Health Data.

Here is a graph of some of the major parts of that spreadsheet:



Notice the dips in the green line? What does the green line represent? What are those sharp downward spikes? What should I do to fix that to make my Feltron better? (Here is how I made that graph).

So, the doctor told me that even though I need to keep my cholesterol down, one does not do that by eating less cholesterol; apparently it's complicated, but eating less sugar/carbohydrates helps. Did I do a good job of that? (Here is a video on how to make the following type of chart):



Hmm... Well, my sugar intake didn't go down. Maybe it was always good? How would I know that? Oh wait, the internet exists! Whew! For things like that, look up a government number. It says carbohydrates are the primary energy source for the brain, so that's important. It also says that I should have 130g each day.

Hmmm... Seems I could cut carbs further. The majority of days I am still eating too many. Here is how I made this chart.

I made a few more charts, you can see them on the spreadsheet.

For Classwork

I want you to make at least five charts out of your spreadsheet data (that is, your Feltron data). Then I want you to publish the sheet to the web, it looks like this. Here is a how to video.

Post the link you get in the comments of this blog page. Then we will talk about what worked and what didn't.

For Homework

I would like you to make a Google Doc that has your color scheme and font choices. Look at fonts here (check out Amatic SC. It is the hippest font - once you look for it, it is everywhere. Playfair Display and Lato are currently my favorites). I posted a link to some color pallet choosers, or you can just play around. Pick 2-3 colors, or 4 at most. I think the way to go is pick two colors and just use shades of them.

Extra

You may want to consider using another tool to make the charts for your final draft. Here are some links:
amcharts (website)
Tableau Public (windows or mac app. Really powerful, but a bit hard to figure out at first. But once you do, it's amazing)
Iconic History makes one really funny chart if you use Chrome
If you use a Mac, Numbers is like super-Google-Sheets. Much prettier charts.

Comments

Unknown said…
I'm sorry Sam, I really tried to do the class work for hw, because I never finished it, but either I'm really bad at it, or it's just not working at all.
March 7, 2016 at 9:33 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feltron Variables - Monday 2/1/2015

Do you have your tickets... to the gun show? #flexin #doyouevenliftbro Please complete this to show you did your homework: Loading... So, let's talk about what makes this project hard: actually collecting data. It's not hard, but somehow, doing it every day is hard. It's easy to miss a day... then two... then all the sudden, you have missed a bunch, and it's scary and you don't want to think about it, so you don't do it. So we are going to preempt all that by putting some work in today to make it hard to forget. First, we will make a Google form. I started it for you, all you is copy it and add your 4 variables . Once you have that, you are going to use a cool feature of Google Sheets to have google email you this form every day. The form will be in the email itself, so all you have to do is open the email, fill out the form, and hit enter. Here are the instructions to follow . Don't be intimidated! You just have to copy and paste some cod...
2 comments
Read more

Monday 9/28

9/28/15 Monday Check in: Friday class & Homework Classwork: As long as we’re talking climate change... If someone tells you they don’t believe humans are causing it, you might want to ask them if smoking is bad for you. Why? There is as much evidence that humans are causing global warming as there is evidence that smoking causes cancer (you don’t have to click that link, I just like to put it up). Anyway, here’s a chart: It is entitled “Breakdown of the anthropic greenhouse gas emissions by gas, in billion tons carbon equivalent, in 2004” - it is a breakdown of the greenhouse gases emitted in 2004 that humans are responsible for. What’s the biggest greenhouse gas? What’s all that CO2 doing, and where does it go? A lot of it goes into the ocean, which seems better than the air, and it is... up to a point. The more CO2 in the ocean, the more acidic it gets (And the more acidic it gets, the lower its ph gets). That is fine... until it’s not. At some...
4 comments
Read more

Marvin Minsky, AI, Math Education

The audio is too good to make this a gif. So, to be clear, this is the blog post for THURSDAY, 1/28. If you are looking for Tuesday's post, go back a post. I wanted to mention to you all that a mathematician and artificial intelligence researched named Marvin Minsky died on Sunday. Among lots of amazing things he did in his life, he wrote about math education for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. Here is that article ; I'd like you to read it for homework. Speaking of death, check out this amazing visualization ! Finally, for classwork, I would like you to go back to Tuesday's blog post, and comment on other people's homework. Specifically do you like the charts they chose? Are they interesting? Any feedback? Homework IMPORTANT: Pick which 5 (or more) variables that you will track for the Feltron project. Think about how you will keep track of them - pen and and notebook? The Reporter App? A pedometer? Also, that Marvin Minsky article is really...
10 comments
Read more