Pre-College Competition

Contact

Dr. Ernest Fokoué
Conference Director

 

 

Call for Participation: The 2026 National Pulse

Rochester Pre-College Data Science Challenge

To the Mentors, Teachers, and Rising Stars of the Greater Rochester Area: As the United States enters the critical 2026 Midterm season, we are not just looking for "answers"—we are looking for revelations. This year, the Challenge moves beyond local boundaries to the national stage. We task you to "Think Globally, Focus Locally."

The Mission

Your team must analyze the heartbeat of the American Electorate. Using open-access repositories, you will seek out the striking, the transformative, and the overlooked patterns of U.S. Elections.

  • The Global View: What trends define the 50 states? Is it the "Midterm Slump," the "Economic Ballot," or the "Geometry of Redistricting"?
  • The Local Pulse: How do these national waves crash upon the shores of the Greater Rochester Area? Does Monroe County follow the script, or are we the outlier?

The Details

  • March 19, 2026: LAUNCH & REGISTRATION 
    • The portal is officially open.
       
  • April 6, 2026: THE FOUNDATIONS (Tutorial Sessions) 
    • Join our PhD mentors for a deep-dive into Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) and Statistical Modeling using R, Python, and Julia.
       
  • April 13, 2026: SUBMISSION DEADLINE 
    • Final Reports (Pure LaTeX) and Video Presentations must be uploaded.
       
  • Award Ceremony:
    • To be held at RIT (Check the website for post-submission details).

Teams must consist of exactly three members:

1. The Captain: The visionary and project architect.
2. The Analyst:The master of the "Nitty-Gritty" code and statistical rigor.
3. The Storyteller: The poet who translates math into a compelling oral narrative.

We provide a curated "Launchpad" of links to the same high-level data used by Ivy League researchers and national newsrooms:

While we reward technical rigor and visualization, the Heaviest Weight (40%) is placed on the Oral Presentation.

Register Your Team

“Data is just noise until a human gives it a voice. We don't want parrots of our templates; we want storytellers who can stand before a panel of judges and defend their truth with passion and precision.”

Are you ready to take on the challenge and become the heroes of tomorrow? Gather your team, start framing your questions, and dive into a world of data science that has the power to change the world!

Register Now

Deliverables

[Final report] All teams are expected to submit a research paper style final report with all the names of all the authors, the faculty mentor and the affiliations of those involved. All the plots and graphs and tables must be properly formatted, captioned, labelled and numbered. Pieces of computer code deemed necessary must be put in the appendix and all the references must appear at the end of the document. All documents must be in pdf format and must be at most 10 pages long.

[Slides] All teams are also expected to submit a high quality set of slides summarizing the research and the findings and to be converted to pdf prior to being submitted

[Video] Teams must also submit a video summary of at most 5 minutes in duration, capturing the essence of your contributions and findings. A team may choose a spokesperson for the team or have a subset of the team do the presentation.

Join the mission for a healthier planet and a brighter future. #RochesterDataScienceChallenge #YouthForChange #SaveOurPlanet

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