1st Annual Transit Datathon
Like data? Like transit? Like being creative?
Come check out UCTEE’s first Datathon! You and a team of up to 3 other friends are encouraged to stop by and make something cool with bus and train data published by the CTA. You can build a tracker, a physical display, a browser extension, a game — whatever you want!
Mentors from the Computer Science department and professional data scientists will be available to answer any questions and give you some starting ideas.
At the end of the evening, you will present to our panel of judges, and the highest ranking project teams will win a prize! Judging criteria will be released shortly.
The event will be held in the MADD Center in John Crerar Library. Dinner will be catered by UChicago Dining Services.
Event Schedule
| 12:00pm – 12:30pm | Introduction, kickoff lecture |
| 12:30pm – 6:30pm | Free work time |
| 6:30pm – 7:00pm | Dinner served |
| 7:00pm – 8:00pm | Presentations and judging |
| 8:00pm – 8:30pm | Awards ceremony, wrap-up |
1st Annual Transit Datathon
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Interested? RSVP below!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the prizes for winning the Datathon?
Prizes are generously sponsored by Transit Tees (https://www.transittees.com/).
1st Place: EL, The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game, El Train Sock and El Train Keychain
2nd Place: Transit Card Notebook, Loop The Elevated Card Game (Renovated Edition), CHI Sticker and El Train Pen
3rd Place: LOOP, The Elevated Card Game, 3×2 Loop Map Magnet and Loop Map Button
All participants, regardless of placement, will receive a Bounce Back Coupon worth $5 Off Purchases of $28 or more in store and online from Transit Tees.
Founded in 2001 by Tim Gillengerten, Transit Tees takes visuals from Chicago’s metropolitan landscapes and transforms them into fashionable artwork, accessories, home goods and more. An official manufacturer of Chicago Transit Authority products, Transit Tees locally designs, fabricates and retails their signature brand online and at two storefronts in Wicker Park and Andersonville. Items in stores are created in their design studio and produced on-site by local artists and craftsmen.
Who can participate in a team?
All UChicago students (undergraduate and graduate) and post-docs may participate in a team or register a team for free. If you are not a UChicago student but still would like to participate, please reach out to kameranis@uchicago.edu and inquire.
Who are the judges?
- Brandon McFadden is the Senior Data Analyst at Commuters Take Action and a Cybersecurity Incident Response Analyst for American Airlines. In mid-2022 he started a project to track the entirety of the CTA Rail Transit system based on a project from Fabio Göttlicher, one of the founding organizers of Commuters Take Action. Now two years in, he has amassed nearly a million CTA arrivals and also started tracking the Chicago Metra Rail system and WMATA in the Washington DC area that can be used alongside his Transit Reliability API.
- Borja Sotomayor (PhD’10) is the Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Computer Science, where he teaches intro CS, software development, and computer networks. His past research has been primarily focused on resource allocation on distributed systems using virtualization. He is also the Director of the Masters Program in Computer Science.
We are in the middle of finalizing judges, so more judges will be added to the list above once we have confirmed their participation.