Homework Problems Need Help

I am trying to help my 12 year old son with a math project for school.
He has to make a scale model of our house. Being the computer wiz
that I am I suggested that we take the measurements that he had
compiled of the house and put them in the computer. Then let Excel
scale the measurements for him. This didn't work very well. Excel
doesn't seem to recognize one foot as being 12 inches. In other words
1 foot 6 inches ends up being 1.5 feet. This causes a problem when
trying to actually build the model.

What I need to know is…

Is there a way to scale measurements in Excel? I want to be able to
say that if 1 foot equals ½ inch the 18 feet 4 inches equals "?". Is
this possible?

Thanks
Steve

Have a look here.
http://tinyurl.com/36jzf

--
Don Guillett
SalesAid Software

"SMonczka" wrote in message
om...
I am trying to help my 12 year old son with a math project for school.
He has to make a scale model of our house. Being the computer wiz
that I am I suggested that we take the measurements that he had
compiled of the house and put them in the computer. Then let Excel
scale the measurements for him. This didn't work very well. Excel
doesn't seem to recognize one foot as being 12 inches. In other words
1 foot 6 inches ends up being 1.5 feet. This causes a problem when
trying to actually build the model.

What I need to know is.

Is there a way to scale measurements in Excel? I want to be able to
say that if 1 foot equals ½ inch the 18 feet 4 inches equals "?". Is
this possible?

Thanks
Steve

Well, this is how I worked on this.

I wanted to take a 3'7" wall, and convert it where 3/4" = 1' (Decided to do something a little funky)

In A1: 3 (Original Feet)
In A2: 7 (Original Inches)
In A3: =A1+(A2/12) (This is the number of feet)
In A4: =A3 * ((3/4)/12) (This is the converted fractional number of feet)
In A5: =TRUNC(A4) (This is the converted number of feet)
In A6: =(A4-A5)*12 (This is the converted number of inches)

So, I ended up with A5 having 0 and A6 having 2.6875.

So, to scale, my 3'7" wall, using a scale of 3/4" equals 1' should be represented as a wall of length 2.6875"

Whatever scale you want to use, just change the equation in line A4. The (3/4)/12 indicates that 3/4" equals 12". (Remember, both of those numbers would have to be in the same units).

Hope that helps!

Dante Gagne
Software Design Engineer/Test
Developer Division
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.