CS21B Lab1: Warmup programs

Due 11:59pm Tuesday, January 25

This lab assignment will require you to write some basic programs in python. A skeleton version of each program that you will write will appear when you run update21b. The program handin21b will only submit files in the current lab directory cs21b/labs/01. Start by using cd to navigate to this directory.

Your programs are graded on both correctness and style. Please review the comments regarding programming style on the main page.

1. Calculating Basal Metabolic Rate

Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body needs to function. We can estimate BMR based on height in inches, weight in pounds, age in years, and gender. Given your BMR we can then estimate the number of calories needed per day to maintain your weight.

For women: BMR = 655 + (4.3 * weight) + (4.7 * height) - (4.7 * age)
For men: BMR = 66 + (6.3 * weight) + (12.9 * height) - (6.8 * age)

Assuming that you are moderately active then multiply your BMR by 40% and add this to your BMR to get the appropriate number of calories to maintain your current weight.

For example, a program to calculate female BMRs should work as follows:

This program calculates Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) for women.

Enter height in inches: 65
Enter weight in pounds: 140
Enter age in years: 20

BMR: 1468.5
Calories needed to maintain weight:  2055.9

While a program to calculate male BMRs should work as follows:

This program calculates Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) for men.

Enter height in inches: 71
Enter weight in pounds: 165
Enter age in years: 18

BMR: 1899.0
Calories needed to maintain weight: 2658.6

Edit the file bmr.py in the current lab directory and create a main program that calculates BMR and calories needed to maintain weight for either men or women, your choice. You don't need to do both.

2. Converting calories to joules

A joule is a unit of energy where 1 calorie is equal to 4.184 joules. Edit the file convertCalories.py in the current lab directory and create a main program that works as follows:

This program converts calories to joules.
Enter starting calorie amount: 500
Enter ending calorie amount: 1000
Enter the step size: 50

Calories        Joules
500             2093.4
550             2302.74
600             2512.08
650             2721.42
700             2930.76
750             3140.1
800             3349.44
850             3558.78
900             3768.12
950             3977.46
1000            4186.8

To get the values to line up in columns you can print out one or more tab characters ("\t") between printing the values on each line. For example, try these print statements in python and see what happens:

print 3, "\t\t", 4
print 3, "\t", 4

Here is another sample run of this program:

This program converts calories to joules.
Enter starting calorie amount: 25
Enter ending calorie amount: 200
Enter the step size: 25

Calories        Joules
25              104.67
50              209.34
75              314.01
100             418.68
125             523.35
150             628.02
175             732.69
200             837.36

Submit

Once you are satisfied with your programs, hand them in by typing handin21b at the unix prompt.

You may run handin21b as many times as you like, and only the most recent submission will be recorded. This is useful if you realize after handing in some programs that you'd like to make a few more changes to them.