BigQuery Sandbox Setup — First Query & Bytes-Billed Report

Outcome: Run your first query in the BigQuery sandbox and read bytes-billed. Check: LAB BQ-1 bytes report (screenshot + bytes number).

1. Setup (free, no credit card)

1. Create a Google account; open the BigQuery console; accept the sandbox (10 GB storage + 1 TB free query tier per month, auto-enforced).
2. Open the public dataset bigquery-public-data.samples.natality (or the course w7-retail upload) and run:

SELECT year, COUNT(*) AS births
FROM `bigquery-public-data.samples.natality`
WHERE year BETWEEN 2000 AND 2010
GROUP BY year ORDER BY year;

3. Read the query validator: "This query will process X MB/GB" before clicking Run — that number is your bytes-billed estimate.

2. LAB BQ-1 bytes report (required evidence)

Submit: query text + validator estimate + post-run "Bytes billed" from Job Information. One paragraph: why SELECT * on the same table bills more than the projection above (columnar projection pruning).