Lab 8 Data Analysis

Yesterday's lab was using Excel to perform linear regression and analize data to find the slope, y-intercept and error of our best fit line. Our analysis involved multipling the x,y coordinates and and squaring them. I used Excel to solve my equations. I learned to construct the equation in a cell and labeled my work. I found the square root function in Excel which I have never used. It was useful in finding r. I did not find it necessary to use a calculator to check my work because of the other new feature we learned. Data Analysis is a great feature in Excel. It does the work in 3 seconds with a lot more analysis. My steps followed the directions pretty closely eventhough I use Excel quite frequently. I decided to break up the formula by numerator and denominator and then use a third cell to divide them. Except to find r, in which I used four cells. The first cell found my numerator and the second found the denominator before being square rooted. The third then square rooted the denominator. And the fourth cell then divided them to get my error from the best fit line. Overall this was a good lab personally because it taught me things I did not know about a prorgam I use almost daily.