Converting practice project to use data driven principles, any other suggestions

So I used JUnit, Selenium, and Cucumber to make a basic web app test and I had some questions about how I might be able to improve it. This is just a personal practice type thing. Here is what I have so far:

CucumberRunner class:

package cucumber;  

import org.junit.runner.RunWith;  

import cucumber.api.CucumberOptions;  
import cucumber.api.junit.Cucumber;  

@RunWith(Cucumber.class)  
@CucumberOptions(  
        format = {"pretty", "json:target/"},  
        features = {"src/cucumber/"}  
        )  

public class CucumberRunner {  

}  

Feature File:

Feature: To test budget calculator form works when there are no errors  

Scenario: Check that form is validated when there are no errors  
Given I am on budget calculator site  
When I populate the budget fields  
And click the calculate button  
Then print the calculated total  
And close the browser  

And my step definitions:

package cucumber.features;  

import org.openqa.selenium.By;  
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;  
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;  

import cucumber.api.java.en.And;  
import cucumber.api.java.en.Given;  
import cucumber.api.java.en.Then;  
import cucumber.api.java.en.When;  

public class StepDefinitions {  

    WebDriver driver = null;  

    @Given("^I am on budget calculator site$")  
    public void shouldNavigateToBudgetCalculatorSite() throws Throwable {  
        try {  
            driver = new FirefoxDriver();  
            driver.navigate().to("http://frugalliving.about.com/library/Budget_Calculator/"  
                    + "bl_budgetcalculator.htm");  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  
    }  

    @When("^I populate the budget fields$")  
    public void shouldPopulateBudgetFields() throws Throwable {  
        try {  
            driver.findElement(By.name("in1")).sendKeys("3500.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("in2")).sendKeys("1000.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex01")).sendKeys("800.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex02")).sendKeys("400.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex03")).sendKeys("50.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex04")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex05")).sendKeys("80.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex06")).sendKeys("150.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex07")).sendKeys("200.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex08")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex09")).sendKeys("50.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex10")).sendKeys("80.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex11")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex12")).sendKeys("40.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex13")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex14")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex15")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex16")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex17")).sendKeys("0.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex18")).sendKeys("200.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex19")).sendKeys("50.00");  
            driver.findElement(By.name("ex20")).sendKeys("0.00");  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  

    }  

    @And("^click the calculate button$")  
    public void shouldClickTheCalculateButton() throws Throwable {  
        try {  
            driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[value=\"Calculate\"]")).click();  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  
    }  

    @Then("^print the calculated total$")  
    public void print_the_calculated_total() throws Throwable {  
        try {  
            String total = driver.findElement(By.name("res")).getAttribute("value");  
            int value = Integer.parseInt(total);  
            System.out.println("The calculated total is: " + value);  
            System.out.println(" ");  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }     
    }  


    @And("^close the browser$")  
    public void shouldCloseTheBrowser() throws Throwable {  
        try {  
            Thread.sleep(2000);  
            driver.quit();  
        } catch (Exception e) {  
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  
    }  



}  

(If you try and run any of that, obviously you'd need the jars for cucumber, selenium, and junit, plus firefox installed). Okay so a couple questions:

1. 
   

   When I am populating the fields, instead of hardcoding 1 value in each, I'd like to set it up to be data driven through excel or MySQL (what word would I use to describe that? would robust be accurate there? or maybe versatile).

   
   


2. 
   

   Also when populating the fields, that code looks cumbersome, and I'm trying to figure out a way I could use a loop to populate for each field, and what type of loop it would be?

   
   


3. 
   

   Being new to automation (QA Engineer Level I intern), and testing in general, is there another/better method or tool to use if I wanted to stick with Java for automation? My job had me using QTP and VB Script, which was really powerful, for a little while to kind of introduce this to me, but I'd rather stick with Java because Java is where I want to focus (and they're giving me the option, so it's not like I'm being insubordinate with them)

   
   

Thanks in advance!

EDIT:

If you do decide to try and run this, these are the jars in the build path:

cucumber-core-1.1.5.jar 
cucumber-html-0.2.3.jar 
cucumber-java-1.1.5.jar 
cucumber-junit-1.1.5.jar 
cucumber-jvm-dep-1.0.3.jar 
gherkin-2.12.1.jar 
hamcrest-all-1.3.jar 
junit-4.11.jar 
selenium-server-standalone-2.44.0.jar

As an aside everything currently works perfect, so just clarifying that I don't have errors or anything like that. More so just looking for tools, or practices that I may be missing or not aware of in general, that I could improve this with. And again, thanks in advance!