Data competitions have proven to be a valuable experiential learning opportunity for undergraduate students, so Virginia Tech hosted its eighth consecutive American Statistical Association (ASA) DataFest event this spring.
Virginia Tech’s event was one of more than 50 ASA DataFest competitions held in 2024, with more than 100 universities across the United States (and beyond) participating in the two-month long competition.
Founded in 2011, ASA DataFest is a data festival where teams of undergraduate students work around the clock to find and share meaning in large, rich, and complex data sets.
Each year, the American Statistical Association provides DataFest organizers with official data sets provided by external sources. This spring, students used data from CourseKata, a platform that creates and publishes a series of ebooks for introductory statistics and data science classes. The goal of the competition was to answer questions about how to use interactive textbooks to improve students’ statistics learning experience.
“I suppose [these data competitions] It’s kind of like a recital that musicians sometimes do,” said Christian Lucero, assistant professor of statistics at Virginia Tech and organizer of ASA DataFest. “We’ve been practicing things like programming and analyzing data. Now it’s time to practice your skills in an open environment and see where you stand.”
Approximately 80 Virginia Tech students participated in this year’s data competition, which is open to undergraduate students of any major. Participants were given a weekend (April 5th to 7th) to work on their projects, and video presentations were due to be submitted on Sunday.
Based on initial scores from the event judges, the top five teams presented live on Monday, April 8th to determine the final award winners.
At the end of the event, four awards were presented: Best Visualization Award, Best Methodology Award, Best Overall Presentation Award, and for the first time, a Student Peer Award, voted for by student participants.
- Best visualization: Fast and Furious Five – Grace Rybak, Divya Polavarapu, Abdullah Rizwan, Darren Jen, Henry Hamm
- Best methodology: Data Junkie – Surya Veluguri, Ishana Garuda, Gabriel Dell
- Best Overall Presentation (Grand Champion) and Student Peer Award: Bitwitz – Alex James Sandoval, Sam Ridderhoff, Joe Harrison, Emma Tripoli, Hess Kwon
