I Do My Sudokus Twenty at a Time

Here is a comprehensive walkthrough guide list for the MECC Individual Finals 2025 case provided by MECC Founder and professor at University of Arizona David Brown and Microsoft Excel World Champion 2025 and MECC faculty Fellow Diarmuid Early.

The case is available for students in your ExPrep account so you can submit it for grading and potentially earn Championships Experience Badge. Try it yourself, and if you get stuck, look for the solution in the videos.

Click the button below to download the case file.

TASK

While you are all-in for Excel Esports, you also like to keep your eye out for similar competitions, and you just stumbled on to the World Puzzle Federation’s Sudoku Grand Prix. You’ve done a few Sudoku puzzles from time to time, but luckily for you, you subscribe to the 20 most popular Excel-themed newspapers of Spreadsheet City. Ah, the golden age of spreadsheets!

Now, you can do your Sudokus 20 at a time, with a little bit of help from your favorite software. Use all your Excel skills to build a Sudoku-solving spreadsheet, and prepare to conquer the Excel Esports and Sudoku worlds at the same time!

Don’t forget to peruse the newspapers for handy Excel tips (not specific to this case!) and tidbits from your favorite Excel MVPs!

WALKTHROUGH VIDEO PROVIDED BY DAVID BROWN

Step-by-step walkthrough to solve the case.

0:00 Intro and overview of the case

1:40 Level 1 – TEXTBEFORE, INDIRECT

4:44 Level 2 – INDIRECT, XLOOKUP, OFFSET, how to make it a LAMBDA, INDEX, MID

11:21 Level 3 – LAMBDA, ROW, INDEX, SEQUENCE, MID

15:38 Level 4 – LAMBDA, MID, TAKE, TOCOL, ROUNDUP, SUM,

22:34 Level 5 – LAMBDA, XMATCH, IFERROR, FILTER, SEQUENCE, ISERROR, TEXTJOIN,

32:25 Level 6 – LAMBDA, IF, LET, SEQUENCE, FILTER, ISERROR, XMATCH, ISNUMBER, …

38:16 Level 7 – LAMBDA, IF, ISNUMBER, MAX, COUNT, PRODUCT,

47:54 Bonus 1 – TEXTAFTER, INDIRECT, SUM, XLOOKUP

50:13 Bonus 2 – INDIRECT, TOCOL, UNIQUE, COUNTIF, SORT

53:15 Bonus 3 – CONCAT, SEQUENCE, , MID, LEN, IF, CODE, SUM

57:14 Bonus 4 – INDIRECT, OFFSET, SUM

58:28 Bonus 5 – INDIRECT, LET, MID, SEQUENCE, TEXTJOIN, CODE, MID, SEQUENCE, LEN, SUM, MAX

1:53:01: Closing remarks

WALKTHROUGH VIDEO PROVIDED BY DIARMUID EARLY

Sections
00:00 Introduction
02:16 Instructions
07:51 Start of solve – data setup
13:06 Level 1
13:38 Level 2 and rest of setup
17:04 Level 3
17:54 Level 4
19:23 Level 5
22:04 Level 6
26:31 Level 7
28:22 Bonus 1
31:31 Bonus 2
34:35 Bonus 3
38:20 Bonus 4
38:29 Bonus 5
42:11 Answer checks

How Students Solved it in Finals

Read how it went for MECC Individual Finalists as they tried to solve this case in Las Vegas, or watch the video below.

I Do My Sudokus Twenty at a Time

How Students Solved it in Finals

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