With the QUESTTech Datathon just passing, we have many QUESTees to congratulate! This competition, sponsored by Fifth Tribe, was the third annual data competition hosted by QUESTech and the QUEST Honors Program at UMD. Teams had the opportunity to analyze a complex dataset and present their findings to a panel of judges for a chance to win a cash prize! Judges included QUEST alumna Heather Bacon (Cohort 34), Dr. Brian Danielak, Professor David Ashley, and QUEST Program Coordinator Emily Marks. 

Daniel Lamb (Q40) and Melvin Rajendran (Q40) at the QUESTTech Datathon with Khuram Zaman, CEO of Fifth Tribe

When asked for a piece of advice for people who want to compete next year, Sareet Nayak (Cohort 38), Co-Lead of QUEST Tech, said ”DO IT! Regardless of if you feel prepared or not, it’s an awesome opportunity to learn about data science, make friends, meet corporate partners (Fifth Tribe), learn about data, and win some cool prizes! We’re working on ways to make the Datathon more accessible to people who don’t have a background in data next year potentially by having (beginner and intermediate) tracks!“

I also had a chance to talk to the first place winners, Daniel Lamb (Cohort 40) and Melvin Rajendran (Cohort 40), and ask them a few questions!

• What made you sign up for the Datathon?

Lamb: I’m in QUESTech and it seemed like a fun event. I wanted to learn more about data processing.

Rajendran: I was interested in participating in the datathon because I was looking for an outlet to apply some of the data science skills I was learning in my coursework. It also seemed like a fun event that would involve creatively thinking about how to pull insights from a large amount of information. Finally, the cash prize seemed nice 🙂

• What did you do to prepare?

Lamb: I looked through the datasets, looked up outside sources about events that Tesla went through, and read through the provided Python libraries a little bit.

Rajendran: To prepare for the datathon, I familiarized myself with some of the tools and techniques that I would have to use to perform data analysis in Python. This included libraries like NumPy and Pandas.

• What were your ideas/findings? How did you come up with them?

Lamb: We found that Elon [Musk] should avoid tweeting about politics, getting in arguments with other Twitter users, and avoid tweeting about Twitter because this correlated to time periods when more Tesla orders were canceled. We also found out that the main reasons for order cancellations were because of issues with production, distribution, customer service, and [Musk]’s own persona. To combat this, we recommended building a new Tesla production factory in the US, and revamping various aspects of their customer service. These were part of a five-year plan we created.

Rajendran: Our team analyzed the content of the tweets regarding Tesla order cancellation, used topic modeling to group together words into distinct topics, and found that there were four key reasons that customers were canceling their Tesla orders. Similarly, we found the top three topics of Elon Musk’s tweets that were most highly correlated with Tesla order cancellation: politics, his acquisition of Twitter, and arguments with other Twitter users.

• What was the process of competing like?

Lamb: It was a little nerve wracking but a lot of fun. I could tell the other groups also put a lot of time and effort into their projects, and it was really cool to see the different approaches that others took. It was also interesting how different methods of data analysis led to different conclusions and variations of conclusions.

Rajendran: During the week of the event, my partner Daniel and I got together a few times to divide work, perform the analysis, and make the slide deck. The night before the presentation, we stayed up super late to put the finishing touches on our content and practice running through our slides. For both of us, it was our first QUEST presentation, and it was a really great experience!

QUEST students at the QUESTTech Datathon

We also want to take a chance to highlight all the winners from the event!

First place: Melvin Rajendran and Daniel Lamb

Second Place: Aaron Epstein and Aleem Virani

Third Place: Tie between Emily Li, Brian Ding, Sneha Patel, Arti Dhareshwar/Richard Zhou

Congrats to all the winners, and we hope to see an even bigger turnout next year!