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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Statistics Students Partner With RCSD and FIRST Robotics


This fall, Professor Pat Kuby’s Statistics II class conducted a Service-Learning statistical research project in an effort to investigate and promote the mathematical and science-related skill effects of the FIRST Robotics Program. 

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a national high school robotics program designed to build awareness and interest in science and engineering among school-aged youth and to provide young people with challenging and engaging skill-building opportunities. FRC challenges teams and their mentors to solve a common problem in a six-week time-frame using a standard kit of parts and a common set of rules. Teams build robots from the parts and enter them in competitions that involve not only the operation of the robots, but also presentation of a variety of other associated team activities, including design of team websites, computer animation (CAD/CAM) presentations on their robots, and involvement in community service activities.

The Principal Investigator received existing Math and Science score data from the Bausch and Lomb cohort of Robotic teams.   The data was recorded in such a manner that the subjects cannot be identified and/or linked in any format to be identified.  As an additional precautionary measure, and also as an aid in data referencing, sequential numbers were assigned as ID’s.   Likewise, corresponding comparison data of non-Robotic team students was received from the Rochester City School District.  This data was in the same non-identifiable subject format as the Robotic teams’ data.

The project involves 89 Robotics students and over 4000 non-Robotics students.  Data was taken from the 2010/2011 academic year.  All data was entered into Minitab for statistical analysis. 

The Statistics students completed the data analysis and wrote conclusions and recommendations.  Students presented the finished product to those involved in the FIRST program and the Rochester City School District.

Tracy Wyant
Education and Service Learning
12/06/2011