[CoLoCo] ubuntu and science fairs
Richard Guenther
heistooheavy at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 4 23:57:01 GMT 2008
Jim,
Sorry I didn't get to this earlier. I'm surprising capable of answering a question on here for once (usually I'm always asking questions....).
I like the idea of using FOSS to facilitate the experiment. I do indeed have experience with R. I had to take a class in the ($10,000.00) SAS. I studied hard, got 100% and then proceeded to cleanse my computer of SAS and began learning R just for the heck of it. R is mostly done on the command prompt, although you can write programs in it. I would think if it more as an interactive stats package, though, for the purposes of a science fair. You can enter your data, save it, and then run tests on it or have it graph it. I have a few hard copies of R books, but some are also online:
http://www.r-project.org/
Check under "manuals". "An Introduction to R" is a classic (I also have it in book form). R would take some guidance, but once you start playing around with a simple data set, you'll see how easy it is to use.
The best science fair projects I ever had were a few years ago when I was teaching in Arizona. One boy had a setup of solar panels that he read the voltage of throughout a day. One panel he left stationary, one he adjusted twice during the day, and one he would align to the sun each reading, to simulate a sun-tracking system. He then did a cost analysis, etc.
The other was a kid who tested different insulations by building little dog houses and plotting the interior temps vs. the exterior throughout several days.
I also remember some painfully bad science fair projects :-(
Richard
----- Original Message ----
From: Jim Hutchinson <jim at ubuntu-rocks.org>
To: Ubuntu Colorado Local Community Team <ubuntu-us-co at lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Monday, February 4, 2008 10:35:45 AM
Subject: Re: [CoLoCo] ubuntu and science fairs
The
other
option
would
be
an
experiment
unrelated
to
FOSS
but
using
FOSS
tools
in
some
way.
Using
R
to
do
the
stats,
for
example.
Anyone
know
how
to
use
R?.....
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