![](https://storage.googleapis.com/kaggle-media/competitions/playground/cat_in_dat/cat7.jpg)
Is there a cat in your dat?
A common task in machine learning pipelines is encoding categorical variables for a given algorithm in a format that allows as much useful signal as possible to be captured.
Because this is such a common task and important skill to master, we've put together a dataset that contains
only
categorical features, and includes:
binary features
low- and high-cardinality nominal features
low- and high-cardinality  ordinal features
(potentially) cyclical features
This Playground competition will give you the opportunity to try different encoding schemes for different algorithms to compare how they perform. We encourage you to share what you find with the community.
If you're not sure how to get started, you can check out the
[Categorical Variables](https://www.kaggle.com/alexisbcook/categorical-variables)
section of Kaggle's
[Intermediate Machine Learning course.](https://www.kaggle.com/learn/intermediate-machine-learning)
[Have Fun!](https://www.kaggle.com/learn/intermediate-machine-learning)