Assignment 1

[lucjohn]

What changes are you trying to make? (e.g. Adding or removing code, refactoring existing code, adding reports)

I completed Assignment 1 in the assignment_1.ipynb notebook by loading and inspecting the Fashion MNIST dataset, building and evaluating a baseline model, building a CNN model, and running controlled experiments on a hyperparameter and a regularization technique. I also filled in the reflection sections with results and analysis.

What did you learn from the changes you have made?

I learned that the baseline flatten-and-dense model performs reasonably well on Fashion MNIST, but a CNN improves test accuracy because it can learn spatial features more effectively. I also learned that more capacity does not always help if the model is already learning enough, and that regularization should be used carefully because it can sometimes reduce performance when the model is not strongly overfitting.

Was there another approach you were thinking about making? If so, what approach(es) were you thinking of?

N/A

Were there any challenges? If so, what issue(s) did you face? How did you overcome it?

Fixing tensor shape and model configuration issues and making sure the experiment cells were reinitialized properly before each run. I also had to make sure the final reflections used the actual test metrics from the notebook outputs.

How were these changes tested?

I ran the notebook cells that load the data, train the baseline model, train the CNN, and run the controlled experiments. I verified the reported test accuracy and MAE values from the executed outputs and confirmed the notebook cells completed successfully.

A reference to a related issue in your repository (if applicable)

N/A

Checklist

• I can confirm that my changes are working as intended

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