Challenge #214: US Military and High Points

[AYXAcademy]

A solution to last week’s challenge can be found here. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon

This week's challenge comes to us from @Blake and @Aaron_Harter - thank you for your contribution!

The MIRTA dataset, released by DoD, contains geographic information for major military installations, ranges, and training areas in the United States and its territories. The other dataset is a listing of the high elevation peaks in each U.S. State, the name of the point, and its elevation.

Using the data provided, filter for active MIRTA sites and answer the following questions.

1. Which peak ranks #14 when only considering the highest peak in each state?
2. Which high peak is closest to a MIRTA site?
3. How many high peaks are closest to a MIRTA site in a neighboring state?

[johnemery]

Fun challenge! Probably not the most elegant solution, but it works.

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View my solution video here:

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[patrick_digan]

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Edit: Thanks @mbogusz , I've fixed my attachment 

[NicoleJohnson]

My solution!

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Cheers!

NJ

[dsmdavid]

In a "neighboring state" or "not in the same state"? Not quite the same (30 vs 26)

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I've used this https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/carto-boundary-file.html to find neighboring (i.e. touching) states.

[zajaccount]

Took me quite a while to figure out why my answer to Q3 was 33. Turns out I used a too simplistic solution for cleansing the State name which resulted in getting rid of the spaces between the words in states like New Mexico.

Also did quite a bit of transposing and cross tabbing and then I got the epiphany of the Make columns tool.

Also, I think the task should be phrased a little differently, "in a neighboring state" does not necesarily mean in a "different state" - unless I missed something, I think we were unable to check the neighbouring states using only the provided data - unless Alteryx has some built in polygons of the US states?

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[Blake]

Hi @dsmdavid and @zajaccount  - good catch. I should have used the use of the word "nearby" or "different" rather than "neighboring".  The intent of the question was not to have users track down a separate data set and make sure that states were touching, just that the closest peak/site were in different states.

[Kenda]

Glad to see @NicoleJohnson has jumped back on the Weekly Challenge Train! ❤️

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[terry10]

Nice challenge!  Lots of opportunity to practice Regex and some spatial too. Question 3 was a lot easier than I had originally figured!! - thanks for the clarification Blake.

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[Jonathan-Sherman]

Challenge 214 is done! Tried for as few tools as possible, managed to get it down to 16 with the exact output or 13 for the correct answers!

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