Included with this assignment is an Excel spreadsheet that contains data with two dimension values.
The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate steps performed in a K-Means Cluster analysis.
Review the “k-MEANS CLUSTERING ALGORITHM” section in Chapter 4 of the Sharda et. al. textbook for additional background.
Use Excel to perform the following data analysis.
- Plot the data on a scatter plot.
- Determine the ideal number of clusters.
- Choose random center points (centroids) for each cluster. (Note: Each student will select a different random set of centroids.)
- Using a standard distance formula measure the distance from each data point to each center point.
- Assign each data point to an initial cluster region based on closeness.
- For each cluster calculate new center points.
- Repeat steps 4 through 6 as a second pass.
- Repeat steps 4 through 6 as a third pass.