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Spreadsheet Tutorial

Calculating an Average                Creating a Chart

Calculating Speed

First we will look at the formula needed to calculate speed.

Speed = Distance
               Time

For example, if  you traveled 2 meters in 30 seconds, the formula would be:

Speed =    2
                30 , therefore Speed = 0.06 meters per second

This formula can also be done on a spreadsheet. 
 

The above chart shows a time trial. You will need to type in all the numbers, EXCEPT the Meters per Second . To make the spreadsheet calculate the speed formula, we need to tell it what to do. We need to tell it what squares, or Cells, to calculate. 

So, for example, in the first part of this chart, I want to have Distance in Meters divided by Time in Seconds. If I look at the chart, I can see that the number for Distance in Meters is in Cell B3. Also, the number for Time in seconds is in Cell B4. These are the two Cells we need to work with.

Now that we know what Cells to calculate, we need to pick where the answer will go. We want that to go in Cell B5. So click on Cell B5, and we will type in the formula. It is as follows:

=B3/B4. Simple isn't it? 

The = sign tells it that it needs to display the answer. The / sign means divide. We told it which Cells to divide, with B3 and B4. Now it will do the formula, just click somewhere else. Cool eh?

This is also neat. You can highlight this section, and copy it below itself and add in the second time trial. Since you have already put in a formula, it will remember it! Next, we will look at a averaging:

Calculating the Average   (Back to Top)

You should now have three time trials on your chart. It should look something like this:
 

What we want to do now is to tell Excel to calculate the average of the three trials. Average means to add a set of numbers together, and to divide them by how many numbers you added. For example, if you added 4, 5  and 6, you would have 15. Since you added three numbers together, you divide by three. It would look like:

4 + 5 + 6 = 15 then 15 / 3 = 5 . So the average is 5!

We want Excel to calculate the average of the three Meters per Second times. These are in Cells B5, B9 and B13. Since we know what Cells, we just need to pick where we want the answer to go. Cell B15 is where we want our Average to show. So highlight it, and we will put in the formula. Excel has in its' program an automatic Averaging formula. So all we need to do is type in:

=Average(B5,B9,B13)

We put the Cells in brackets, so it knows which ones to calculate. We also have to put commas in between the Cells to separate them. Easy! After your group does two more sets of time trials, you will be ready for the last step...

Creating a Chart (Back to Top)

You should have three sets of time trials now, it should look something like this:
 

Excellent! You did a lot of work. Now we will make a chart. It is pretty easy too. On the above spreadsheet, the areas we need to use are highlighted. Notice the titles are also included! Cell by Cell, copy and paste these below your information. It should look like this:
 

Once you have done this, highlight the above section. Then click the chart icon. It will let you choose the chart you want, and guide you through a tutorial. Once you are done, a beautiful chart will appear. Congratulations! There is a sample below:

Now you just need to save all of this, and print out a copy for your folder. Great job!!!

(Back to Top)