Predicting Titanic Survival with Random Forest Classifier

Build a random forest classifier model to predict Titanic survival using Kaggle's dataset.

Build a predictive model to analyze Titanic survival data using a random forest classifier. Learn key techniques including label encoding and submitting results for Kaggle competitions.

Key Insights

  • The article demonstrates the practical application of a random forest classifier to analyze the Kaggle Titanic dataset, a widely recognized dataset in machine learning.
  • It outlines specific steps including importing essential libraries, connecting to Google Drive, and utilizing label encoding to convert dataset values into binary format for modeling.
  • The process concludes with preparation and submission of data predictions directly to Kaggle, providing hands-on experience with competitive machine learning challenges.

Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.

Hey folks, today we'll be predicting Titanic survival using a random forest classifier. We'll get more into what a random forest classifier is in a little bit when we get to it, but first we're going to be dealing a lot with the Titanic dataset. This is an iconic dataset used for machine learning practice, and today we're going to be working particularly with the Titanic dataset version from Kaggle.

We'll even be towards the end submitting our data in the Kaggle competition for the Titanic dataset. So, fun video, fun set of videos, let's get started with it. All right, first we're going to import all of our grade items, set everything up with Google Drive, set our base URL, and import our random forest classifier, which we'll use to create a random forest classifier model.

And we'll also be using label encoder, which is a way we'll walk through to make zeros and ones out of our values, similar to the one-hot encoding that we did in a previous set. Okay. Let's load our data from this CSV file, which, again, is provided by Kaggle.

So, I'm going to call it Titanic data, and it's going to be what we get when we get a CSV file, when we read a CSV file and turn it into a data frame. So, we'll be working with this data frame a lot. And it's going to be at the base URL and the CSV URL up above.

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And we should be able to see our Titanic data here. And here it is. We'll start walking through that data in the next bit.

Colin Jaffe

Colin Jaffe is a programmer, writer, and teacher with a passion for creative code, customizable computing environments, and simple puns. He loves teaching code, from the fundamentals of algorithmic thinking to the business logic and user flow of application building—he particularly enjoys teaching JavaScript, Python, API design, and front-end frameworks.

Colin has taught code to a diverse group of students since learning to code himself, including young men of color at All-Star Code, elementary school kids at The Coding Space, and marginalized groups at Pursuit. He also works as an instructor for Noble Desktop, where he teaches classes in the Full-Stack Web Development Certificate and the Data Science & AI Certificate.

Colin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two kids, and many intricate board games.

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