Data Fest gives Chico State students real-world practice in statistics

Chico State Students Eduardo Gomez (left) and Eisley Adoremos (right) showing their Judge’s Choice award Sunday afternoon at the Data Fest competition at Sylvester’s Cafe. Photo credit: Nate Rettinger

Chico State students spent three days analyzing data sets as part of the national Data Fest competition put on by the American Statistical Association.

Data Fest is a national competition that allows students of all majors to compete with and against other teams on their campus to analyze a set of data that the American Statistical Association provides for them.

Sign 1.jpg — DataFest allows students to analyze data and compete with other students.

The goal of DataFest is to get undergraduate students to analyze real-world questions that can be solved through data analysis.

Day two of DataFest continues at Sylvester’s Cafe. The American Statistical Association puts on the event and lets students across the state compete with with others on their campus to come up with question, statements and hypotheses from data provided @theorion_news pic.twitter.com/xMSmodjOqi

— Gordon Papalias (@GordonPapalias) April 6, 2019

Campuses are given a dataset, such as crime data from LAPD. They then work in groups and use their creativity and abilities to find patterns, form hypotheses and draw conclusions from the data. Each of the 30 campuses that are involved receive the same set of data and compete all weekend to come up with the best set of data.

On Sunday, Data Fest ended with presentations to a panel of judges of the final conclusions made by the different teams. Awards were given to teams on different criteria from best visuals to the best discovery from the data gathered.

DataFest Squad 1.jpg — Groups of students in Sylvester's Cafe working hard to accumulate data for their teams Photo credit: Gordy Papalias

Eisley Adoremos, a Chico State student majoring in statistics, won the Judge’s Choice Award. Adoremos, along with his team, Data Strikes Back, had been competing since Friday evening.

Adoremos expressed how he was encouraged by the competition this year and was excited to see it growing. Last year’s Data Fest only saw 12 participants sign up, whereas this year had 46 people.

Chico State Students Eduardo Gomez (left) and Eisley Adoremos (right) showing their award for winning an award at Data Fest. Photo credit: Nate Rettinger

Adoremos said he learned a lot at this year’s Data Fest and found it to be a valuable challenge that will benefit him in the future.

“I know this experience will help me deal with the challenges with big data,” Adoremos said. “This is the type of experience that’s going to help me in the real world.”

Nate Rettinger and Gordy Papalias can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.