Background
DISCLAIMER: this uses a fictitious story line to setup a data problem in a format like the word problems one might have been assigned in a math class. The agency described is fictional and is not meant to represent any agency in real life.
This article went through a significant revision on 24 December 2025.
The legislature in Indiana voted in March 2025 to create an agency to solve the problem of rampant illegal mattress tag pulling across the state. The agency will be known as the Indiana Mattress Bureau of Enforcement and Documentation (IMBED).
Description of the Problem
IMBED’s job is to reduce the frequency of mattress tag pulling incidents. First the agency will collect data points by location to create a heatmap. With this visual, it would be possible to identify trouble spots.
Secondly, IMBED will use this information to create enforcement zones. If for example, Fort Wayne had a high number of incidents, then IMBED would define a region around Fort Wayne and designate it as an enforcement zone.
Thirdly, once enforcement zones are created any future incidents would be checked against these zones to see if they occurred within the zone. If they did then the incident is set to a status indicating it is to be investigated. If not, then it its status will indicate the incident should not be investigated.
Like many government agencies, IMBED has a limited budget and cannot investigate all incidents. By addressing the trouble spots the agency can reduce the incident rate efficiently.
Project Goals
Make a heatmap of mattress tag incidents. With the idea of creating a heatmap that shows 3-5 trouble spots across the state.
Your data points should:
(1) Be concentrated in limited areas so that we have a few hotspots to work with.
(2) Avoid being on private residences to protect privacy. The data only has to be located within the state and concentrated in areas that you want to define as hotspots/enforcement zones.
It should not be over a private residence in case you share your projects publicly. There is no harm for the purposes of this exercise to plot points in areas where no one lives in real life. Public parks, lakes, rivers, etc. are great locations for this.
(3) Create a heatmap using these points. If the sample data is created properly, you would be able to tell by looking where the incident hotspots are. You would be able to say for example, “We need an enforcement zone in Lafayette, another one in Kokomo, and one more in Evansville”.
(4) Once you setup enforcement zones, you then create more data points and process them. If the point is in an enforcement zone, it is to be investigated, otherwise it is not to be investigated.
You should test the points to make sure they are being identified properly as in a zone or not in a zone. Once the code passes the test, the project is complete.
Links to Other Resources
Although it has much of the same content as this blog article does, you can watch a video that discusses the project and has a mock news report about the creation of the fictitious IMBED agency.