Frequently Asked Questions

Details

The event starts on Friday the 5th of February, at 12pm EST. You can attend the kickoff live here (must be logged in to Zoom with your NYU account): https://nyu.zoom.us/j/92125240603.

The final datathon submissions should be submitted by 1:30pm EST on Friday the 12th of February.

This event is only open to NYU undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students. To officially sign up, go on our official sign-up sheet and either start your own team or join an open one!

Sure! This is why we encourage you to participate with teams with different backgrounds. Besides, we have workshops to help you build skills during the datathon.

All the appropriate links can be found on our event schedule. This event is 100% virtual. You must be logged into NYU Zoom to be able to get into the workshops and events.

NYU's Data Science Club and NYU Data Services are collaborating to bring you the 2021 Love Data Week's datathon. You can see more over at our organizers page.

No, there are no restrictions to the types of technology that can be used, so get creative! Our only requirement is that anything you make can be shared with the judges.

Sorry, but due to the limited number of judges we cannot have any individuals working by themselves.

Tracks are the distinct challenges and datasets that are in this competition, all information can be found on the track description page. We have three tracks: Stepping through History (using 55 million pages of digitized historical newspapers), Helping the NYU Community (using L2 voter data), and Mapping Climatological Futures (using India Meteorological Data).

Choose the one that interests you and your team the most 😃👍

Sorry, you cannot change tracks during the datathon. You have to finalize your track by Saturday 6th at 4pm EST.

Each team’s point of contact must select a track on the submission form before Saturday 2/6 4PM ET. A single track for each team must be selected by the deadline to officially be a part of this datathon. Make sure to check out all the tracks before making your final selection! Please keep in mind that you cannot switch tracks after your initial selection.

All the tracks run parallelly so you wouldn’t be able to do all. We love the ambition, but we want everyone to have a fair shot at winning so please just submit one project for one track.

A sandbox challenge typically refers to a testing environment for untested code and experimentation. A sandbox challenge for the datathon is intended to be as open-ended as possible, the only challenge goal to experiment and come up with something interesting and that you're excited by!

  • Saturday the 6th at 4pm EST - Finalize teams and track
  • Sunday the 7th at 4pm EST- Submit 5-minute "idea" video
  • Friday the 12th at 1:30pm EST - Final submissions due

If your name appears somewhere on this sign up sheet, then you're all set!

You are, it’s all about the experience!! Also -- we have workshops for you 😃👍

You can coordinate with your team and delegate tasks so work can be done at different times depending on what you determine is best. Also - all the workshops and sessions will be recorded and available to you on our event schedule.

No. You can if you want, but getting rest is also important 😃

Teams

To form teams just reach out on the #looking-for-teammates channel on the DS Club Slack [invite link], message your friends, or join an open team on the sign up sheet! Teams must be 2-5 people with no more than 2 graduate students per team.

You can create groups using Slack or connect with them via other agreed upon channels! If you’re having trouble, let us know during our support hours and we can help.

Just try to reach out to the teams that are "green"/open on the official sheet. If there are no open teams, make your own team and reach out to some people or wait for someone to reach out to you. You're not the only one in this situation!

The organizers do not assign you teams - you can find new people and register as a team here (must be logged in with NYU account to view/edit): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RvUoBbS6Jmn_MYmcJCLCBAy_bUYzdWAEpwsywgRJeqI/edit#gid=0.

Workshops

We have many workshops! You can find a list of datathon-specific workshops on our event schedule, and the full workshop list for Love Data Week can be found on the Libraries calendar: https://nyu.libcal.com/calendar/classes?cid=1564&t=m&d=2021-02&cal=1564,11726&ct=47942&inc=0.

They will be recorded and posted on our event schedule, so you can access them during the datathon.

No. You can choose to attend them if you think it would be helpful, but it is not mandatory.

Help & Support

You can find the information at our support schedule!

You can visit the #ask-a-librarian channel on the DS Club Slack [invite link] with your tech questions and someone will get back to you during the support hours.

You should try to have all your track -specific questions answered before you make a decision on Saturday the 6th at 4pm EST. You can contact Data Services if you have any questions at the #ask-a-librarian channel on the DS Club Slack [invite link].

Submitting Projects

Everyone will need to submit their code and the derivations of the data they made, as well as documentation and any visualizations created. Submit your team's final project here: nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01yIs8kFZDuTZcy.

You must upload your 5 minute video to NYU Google Drive and share it with adis@nyu.edu before Sunday the 7th at 4pm EST. Make sure this file is downloadable.

Each track will have between 2 - 4 judges each, who are faculty and staff from NYU. Judges will score projects on a rubric (different per-track) and ultimately decide the award winners.

No! In fact, there are extra points for creativity. The 5 minute "idea" video you submit on Sunday the 7th at 4pm EST carries 30% of your score and it is scored for creativity.

Yes, you can submit the project whenever you finish! We will make the submission link available soon.

Prizes

We have two kinds of awards: spirit and track-based. There are four different awards per track: best overall, clearest visualization, most reusable, and creativest solution. Prizes include 1 on 1 custom workshops, internship opportunities, exclusive meetings with esteemed faculty, cash, 3-D printed trophies, and more!

The team spirit award is an award meant to encourage good spirit and fun during a week of working hard with data. To get the spirit award, you and your team will send short videos or pictures from the whole team about your idea (there will be rubric provided). The team spirit challenges will also include smaller things like sending pictures of you hydrating yourself! The DSC will do the first evaluation which makes up 30% of the score overall.