Make 1,200 dinosaurs in no time with Excel [formulas]

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It seems spreadsheets & dinosaurs on a collision course. How else can you explain Jon’s XKCD Velociraptor problem solved with Excel and now this. Debby, an alert reader of our blog sent me this email yesterday.

I need an algebraic formula to solve this in Excel

I have 5 heads, 5 bodies, 4 arm sets, 4 leg sets and 3 tails. I need to see if I can create 1000 dinosaurs from these, and if that’s too many AND I need the 5 digit groupings to prove it and create them.
basically Xa*Xb*Xc*Xd*Xe=1000 – I’m not supposed to go over 1200. […] And then I want the 5 digit combinations if possible – right now they are trying to do the combinations by hand – would be awesome if we could do it in Excel.

Ladies & gentlemen, let’s fire up Excel

There are two problems to solve.

(1) How many dinosaurs can be made?

(2) Listing of all such dinosaurs.

The first one is easy.

We just multiply the number of heads, bodies, arms, legs & tails. I know this sounds biologically impossible. But in math everything is possible. So we get =5x5x4x4x3 = 1200

That means, given the body part variations, we can generate 1,200 dinosaurs. Some of them may be hideous, but 1,200 of them nevertheless.

Making 1200 dinosaurs in Excel

This is very simple. We just use the MakeDinosaur() formula in Excel.

Of course, I am kidding. There is no MakeDinosaur(). Instead, we can use the all powerful INDEX().

Let’s say, we have listed the various parts in a range like this:

dinosaur-part-choices

Now, each of those ranges are conveniently named as heads, bodies, arms, legs and tails.

dinosaur-combinationsNext, in an empty column, we list 1200 running numbers. Side note: we could do away with this step and use ROWS() function. But dinosaurs don’t mind helper columns.

Let’s say, these running numbers are in H4:H1203.

We now use our T-rex sized INDEX formula.

=INDEX(heads,(H4-1)/240+1) & INDEX(bodies,MOD((H4-1)/48,5)+1) & INDEX(arms,MOD((H4-1)/12,4)+1) & INDEX(legs,MOD((H4-1)/3,4)+1) & INDEX(tails,MOD((H4-1),3)+1)

This generates all combinations of dinosaurs.

Let’s dissect the t-rex. Shall we?

  • The formula is a concatenation of five INDEX functions.
  • Each fetching one body part viz head, body, arm, leg or tail

Head portion:

Formula: INDEX(heads,(H4-1)/240+1)

What it does? There are 5 head choices and 1200 possible dinosaurs. That means, each type of head is attached to 240 (1200/5 = 240) dinosaurs.

So, we simply take the number in H4, divide it with 240 and figure out which head to use.

Body portion:

Formula: INDEX(bodies,MOD((H4-1)/48,5)+1)

What it does? So we now have 240 possible dinosaurs with a given head. And we have 5 types of body. That means 48 dinosaurs per each type of body given a head type. 

We could use INDEX(bodies, MOD(H4-1,240)/48 +1) to get the corresponding body number.

Alternatively, we can use the simplified version  INDEX(bodies,MOD((H4-1)/48,5)+1)

Why does it work? That is for you to figure out. There is a reason we are not extinct yet.

Remaining parts:

We use similar logic to fetch other body parts.

Download the dinosaurs

Download the 1,200 dinosaurs. Be careful, #14321 is a bit loony. She almost bit my shift key.

How would you make ’em dinosaurs?

Of course, we could use VBA, other formulas to make these nasty reptiles. What would you do if someone asks you create a few dinosaurs? Share your recipe in the comments.

Stop stomping & start succeeding @ spreadsheets

Do you resort to manic stomping and rampage when a spreadsheet goes astray? Take things into control. Sharpen your spreadsheet skills. Check out below pages:

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26 Responses to “FIFA Worldcup Excel Spreadsheets [Roundup]”

  1. J. J. says:

    Nice roundup! Do you know of any one-page spreadsheets which will be updated by an administrator after each game? Would be nice to be able to print out the latest results whenever I feel like checking them as I probably won't be following closely every day.

    I actually haven't tried any of the above ones yet, but I thought I'd mention this one that I found which makes a nice one-page form you can fill in dynamically. http://exceltemplate.net/sports/world-cup-2010-schedule-and-scoresheet/

  2. Diego Garcia says:

    I would like to recommend you these one: http://www.anotagol.com/
    You can choose your interface language (english, spanish, italian, portuguese, german or french) and your country for the timezone of match. I like it very much.

  3. [...] Passend zu gerade laufenden Fußball-WM gibt es auf Chandoo.org alles wissenswerte über Excel-Anwendungen für den Fußball-Fan. [...]

  4. Rohit1409 says:

    Great!!!

    I strongly recommend this :

    http://www.en.excel-soccer-2010.de/downloads

    Chandoo how you found this ...

  5. Chandoo says:

    @Rohit.. really beautiful file. I missed it during my research. Now, I recommend it. 🙂

  6. Mourad Louha says:

    Hi Chandoo - thanks for the recommandation 🙂 - Regards

  7. [...] Excel, then print it on the other side of your Match Schedule from step 2 above. There are several other Excel spreadsheet templates you can download, but this is probably the only one-page version you can find; plus, it [...]

  8. Robert says:

    Does anybody know how to re-create this(?): http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html
    ...or do you know where a template can be found? I am DYING to have something like this on my site. When I found it, I had been looking for the longest time for a circular calendar. I found a couple that weren't adequate. Then I stumbled upon this one and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. If anyone can lead me in the right direction, I would be eternally grateful!

    Thanks in advance!
    Robert

  9. Chandoo says:

    @Robert...

    Doing something like that is a lot of work. You can probably get it done with some hired help from a flash developer.

  10. Pedro Wave says:

    @Robert, the World Cup flash in the Spanish Marca newspaper is impresive, but not much as my own animated spreadsheet with the Goals of 2010 World Cup South Africa in Excel that I just published into my blog:
    http://pedrowave.blogspot.com/2010/06/goals-of-2010-world-cup-south-africa-in.html

    Download from here:
    http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.office.live.com/view.aspx/.Public/Goals%20South%20Africa%20Animated.xlsx

    And start to enter the goals of the rest of matches.

  11. Neil says:

    Has anyone seen, or made, a Spreadsheet where you can record the scorers and see a 'top scorers' chart. Would be a nice enhancement

  12. Chandoo says:

    @Neil... checkout this one http://www.inflexionary.com/sports/world-cup-2010-excel

    it uses macros to fetch scores from web (and provides very comprehensive analysis too)

    @All.. Thanks for the comments. I have updated the post with few more links now.

  13. Sergio Mathias says:

    Hi,
    Check this dashboards too:
    http://dashboards.org/world-cup-dashboards-and-visualizations/
    😉

  14. [...] Here is a collection of FIFA World Cup Spreadsheets if you are more in to that sort of thing. | [...]

  15. [...] Cup fever is here!In FIFA Worldcup Excel Spreadsheets Roundup, Chandoo has some links to useful World Cup tracking workbooks. Only one of them (the first one) [...]

  16. [...] World Cup fever is here!In FIFA Worldcup Excel Spreadsheets Roundup, Chandoo has some links to useful World Cup tracking workbooks. Only one of them (the first one) [...]

  17. Hey, you missed ours! It has everything you need and more, but not a whole pile of silly extras (National Anthems, etc).  I'll be making another one for the 2014 world cup.  We had over 4000 hits on it!

  18. Neil says:

    @Michael Harwood.

    Where is it then? You should have posted a link  

  19. phillip says:

    Sie sollten an einem Wettbewerb teil zu nehmen für einen der besten Blogs im Web. Ich werde empfehlen Sie diese Seite!
    Google translation: You should take part in a contest for one of the best blogs on the web. I will recommend this site!

  20. [...] and welcome to the forum, Maybe these similar spreadsheets might give you a few initial ideas: FIFA Worldcup Excel Spreadsheets [Roundup] | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online If you have specific areas / formulae / layout choices for parts of your spreadsheet that you are [...]

  21. Petros says:

    Calling all football fans around the globe! The biggest football festival will kick off on the 12th June 2014 and everyone is placing their bets of who will have the honour of lifting the golden trophy.

    Use our free interactive Excel templatel to predict the World cup finalists ! No macros !

    http://www.spreadsheet1.com/world-cup-2014-free-excel-prediction-template.html

  22. marten says:

    I also made a Worldcup-tracker, with MS Access, which can also generate reports in Excel
    e.g. a match-schedule with locations on y-axis and dates on x-axis, see:
    http://worktimesheet2014.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/excel-with-match-schedule-for-2014-fifa.html
    and:
    http://worktimesheet2014.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/match-access-app-to-track-world-cup.html

  23. Vivek Ranjan says:

    where can i find raw data in excel file format of fifa world cups (1930-2014)

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