Case Study

Choosing a New Neural Network Design

Case context: You are building a model to spot manufacturing defects in conveyor-belt images. The current network is underfitting, but when you made the network much larger, the validation error got worse. You are now considering a different network architecture rather than only adjusting the size of the current one.

Question: What should you expect about this approach, and where might you look for ideas for new architectures?

Sample answer: A new architecture may help with both underfitting and overfitting at the same time. However, it is usually harder to predict the result of than a simple size change, and it can be more difficult to design and implement. Good places to look for ideas include recent research papers and open-source code repositories such as GitHub.

Key points:

  • Can influence both bias and variance
  • Less predictable than a simple size adjustment
  • Harder to discover and implement
  • Search papers and open-source code for ideas

Rubric: The learner must mention the possible effect on both error sources, the difficulty and unpredictability of the change, and sources for architecture ideas.

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Updated 2026-08-12

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Machine Learning

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Machine Learning Strategy

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