Protocol
Derive and Test Regularized Regression
Produce a regression baseline with a residual audit. Explain why correlated predictors may make coefficients unstable while predictions remain similar.
35–60 active hours60–90 min sessionsIntermediate
Mastery contract
Core protocol · Standard 1.0 · Produce a regression baseline with a residual audit. Explain why correlated predictors may make coefficients unstable while predictions remain similar.
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Reasoning — not yet passed
Derive all objectives and distinguish predictive assumptions from conditions needed for coefficient interpretation.
Reliable implementation — not yet passed
Predictions match the reference within 1e-5 on a well-conditioned fixture; no explicit matrix inverse is used.
Reproducible experiment — not yet passed
The regularization comparison uses identical splits and reports residual diagnostics rather than only one aggregate score.
Defense and handoff — not yet passed
Defend an OLS-versus-ridge choice on a tabular dataset, including a case where extrapolation is unsafe.
All four criteria must pass. Activity completion does not satisfy them.
An independent reviewer reruns your work and varies something you did not rehearse: a fresh input, a different working directory, or a declared edge case.
Pilot decisions are provisional, not external credentials. For an appeal or sensitive artifact, contact your designated pilot operator with the submission ID. Export your assessment history.
What you will do
6 total
Derive least squares and ridge objectives, gradients and normal equations; connect ridge to a Gaussian prior and state the intercept convention.
Implement OLS with QR/SVD and ridge with linear solves and gradient descent; compare coefficients/predictions with scikit-learn.
Use a frozen split to compare closed-form and iterative fits across 5 regularization values; report residual plots and training/validation error.
Debug accidental intercept penalization and standardization fitted on all data; quantify the impact of each.
Write a 500–900 word technical report linking the reasoning, code, measurements, and limitations; include the project decision below.
Assess all 4 mastery criteria against saved artifacts, request an independent review, and repeat each failed criterion on a fresh example.
Essentials
A reading session alone never satisfies a mastery criterion.
Store source references, assumptions, and artifact paths beside every result.
Keep an untouched check case that differs from the worked example.
Record all attempts, including failures and results that contradict your prediction.
Use the stated comparison conditions; document every deviation before drawing a conclusion.
Protocol guardrails
Do
- +State the expected result before running the comparison.
- +Keep one minimal reproducible failing case when debugging.
- +Record environment versions and the exact command used.
- +Compare explanations with saved intermediate values.
- +Ask a reviewer to challenge the weakest assumption.
Don't
- ×Do not copy a worked solution and present it as an independent implementation.
- ×Do not tune against held-out evaluation outcomes.
- ×Do not report only the best seed or discard inconvenient runs.
- ×Do not equate elapsed hours or a completed run with a passed assessment.
- ×Do not conceal reduced-scale experiments behind claims about the original full-scale result.
Protocol authorship
Written by NuthinButta as instructional design. The teaching sources are the official references linked in each milestone; the exercises, workload and pass thresholds are ours, not their authors'.