[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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