Vertical bar chart with plt.bar in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Vertical Bar Chart with plt.bar

📖 Scenario: You work in a small bakery. You want to show how many cakes you sold each day last week. A simple bar chart will help you see which days were busiest.

🎯 Goal: Create a vertical bar chart using plt.bar to display the number of cakes sold each day of the week.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list called days with the days: 'Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday'.

Create a list called cakes_sold with the exact numbers: 20, 35, 30, 35, 27, 40, 45.

Use plt.bar to make a vertical bar chart with days on the x-axis and cakes_sold on the y-axis.

Add labels for the x-axis as 'Days' and y-axis as 'Number of Cakes Sold'.

Add a title 'Cakes Sold Last Week'.

Display the chart with plt.show().

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Bar charts are a simple way to show comparisons, like sales over days or months, helping businesses see trends quickly.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists often use bar charts to present data clearly to teams and decision makers.

1

Create the data lists

Create a list called days with these exact values: 'Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday'. Then create a list called cakes_sold with these exact numbers: 20, 35, 30, 35, 27, 40, 45.

Matplotlib

# Create the lists days and cakes_sold with the exact values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create lists. Separate items with commas.

2

Import matplotlib and set up the plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt. This will let you create the bar chart.

Matplotlib

days = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']
cakes_sold = [20, 35, 30, 35, 27, 40, 45]
# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt to import the plotting library.

3

Create the vertical bar chart

Use plt.bar with days as the x values and cakes_sold as the heights of the bars. Then add x-axis label 'Days', y-axis label 'Number of Cakes Sold', and the title 'Cakes Sold Last Week'.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
days = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']
cakes_sold = [20, 35, 30, 35, 27, 40, 45]
# Create the bar chart and add labels and title
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.bar(x, y) to create bars. Use plt.xlabel(), plt.ylabel(), and plt.title() to add labels and title.

4

Display the bar chart

Use plt.show() to display the bar chart you created.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
days = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']
cakes_sold = [20, 35, 30, 35, 27, 40, 45]
plt.bar(days, cakes_sold)
plt.xlabel('Days')
plt.ylabel('Number of Cakes Sold')
plt.title('Cakes Sold Last Week')
# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.show() to see the chart window pop up.