North American’s top post-secondary Performance Analysis students compete in 9th annual Datafest
VICTORIA, BC – Looking to work with the top undergraduate students in North America in the fields of Data Analytics, Canadian Sport Institute Pacific (CSI Pacific) co-sponsored ASA Datafest for the first time in 2019.
The American Statistical Association (ASA) DataFest is a celebration of data in which teams of undergraduates work around the clock to find and share meaning in a large, rich, and complex data set.
CSI Pacific staff member Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai mentors students at ASA Datafest 2019
DataFest was founded at UCLA in 2011, when 30 students gathered for 48 intense hours to analyze five years of arrest records provided by Lt. Thomas Zak of the Los Angeles Police Department. ASA DataFest is now sponsored by the American Statistical Association and hosted by several of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country. More than 3000 students take part from approximately 40 universities including University of Toronto, UCLA, University of Southern California, Purdue University, Duke, the University of North Carolina, Princeton, Dartmouth, Smith, Hampshire, Amherst, University of Massachusetts and many others.
CSI Pacific donated the data along with their sport partner, Rugby Canada; specifically, from the Rugby Canada’s Women’s 7s team. From CSI Pacific’s side, this work was completed by CSI Pacific Lead, Biomechanics & Performance Analysis, Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai.
Dr. Tsai worked closely with the ASA DataFest organizing committee to curate the data a provide students with a “clean” data set, thereby allowing the students to spend more time completing in-depth analysis of the data.
The theme of this year’s competition was “Fatigue”. A few of the areas suggestion to the participants for exploration included:
- How reliable are subjective wellness scores? Can you quantify the individual variation in self-reported data and use this to adjust scores?
- Should the quality of the opponent or the outcome of the game be considered when examining fatigue during a game?
- Some accepted (and even widely used) measurements of training load or fatigue are insufficient. For example, you’ll find in these data a “Monitoring Score” which simply sums the values of other subjective scores in an attempt to create a single overall measure of fatigue. Is a simple sum useful? Or can it be improved? For example, are all components of this Monitoring Score needed? Are some more important than others, and why?
The competition ran from March 22nd to May 3rd, with data being released only on the day of each school’s event. The competition took place in numerous locations across North America, with each location having a winning group of students.
The competition is judged by local data scientists who work in the industry.
The quality of this year’s competition was regarded to be the highest on record and ASA expects both the quality and quantity to increase for 2020.
To find out more about ASA Datafest:
https://ww2.amstat.org/education/datafest/
To watch the CSI Pacific ASA Datafest intro video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie32B8MldyE&feature=youtu.be
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To find out more:
Dr. Ming-Chang Tsai,
Lead, Biomechanics & Performance Analysis
Canadian Sport Institute Pacific
Noah Wheelock
Manager, Communications & I.T.
Canadian Sport Institute Pacific
250.220.2534
250.813.3474
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About Canadian Sport Institute Pacific: Powering Performance. Inspiring Excellence.
Offering world-class Olympic and Paralympic training environments in Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria, Canadian Sport Institute Pacific (www.csipacific.ca) is committed to Powering Performance. Inspiring Excellence. Working with national sport organizations and fuelled by our national and provincial partners such as Sport Canada, viaSport, Own the Podium, Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee and the Coaches Association of Canada, we are driven by our mantra to Collaborate. Serve. Innovate.
Our team of sport science, sport medicine, coaching & life services experts provide leading-edge programs and services to athletes and coaches to ensure they have every advantage to win medals for Canada.