Over in The Atlantic, this article appears that compares cities by density of degreed people.  I was delighted to find the included link to the actual spreadsheet data used to create the prominent graphic associated with the report.  After reading it I wanted to perform my own analysis.

When reading the article my immediate reaction was “Of course that is the outcome, but it does not demonstrate anything useful.”  Which is why I was glad to find the raw data.  My reasoning goes like this:

• The highest “rated” cities in the report also appear to be the cities having overall highest population density.
• I would expect that in cities having a high density of population to have a high density of degreed people.
• This would only be useful if I believed that the distribution of educated people is linear.

A much more interesting analysis, in my opinion, would contrast the density of the city to the density of the educated in that city.  So I did my own analysis using the same input data, assuming that would be a valid starting point.

Here is the graph of my own analysis.   Lower is better.

Comparing Density of City to Density of Degrees

What the analysis tells me is that a city like Seattle is a good place to be if you want to meet more educated people per population density. And Detroit ranks at the bottom.

We’re about 2 hours into the competition event. I took some snap shots with my iPhone.

I’m really too far away for much detail. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some HD video clips later.

NASA has a live webcast you can watch. Just Google for “VEX Omaha competition webcast”.

Just a follow-up note. I’m proud to say that Buffett Magnet Middle School, along with their team alliance partner, placed first place in the competition in the Middle School category. This parent is proud because Nicholas is Team Captain of Buffett’s winning team.

From here the team goes on to compete in the VEX World Championship in Dallas, Texas in May. We’ve already got our rooms booked. When they compete in the World Championship they will be up against High School students. Being as this is the first year for the Buffett team, that should prove to be very exciting.

Getting into the Omaha Civic Auditorium early this morning. First meet is @ 8:00.

Here’s a photo while things are being setup for the day.

This weekend the VEX Robotics Championship of the Americas is being held right here in my home town of Omaha.

It’s a pretty big deal, with High School and Junior High School kids from all over the United States and even some from other countries competing in robotics. It’s a lot of fun to watch. My step-son Nicholas is captain of the robotics team from his Junior High School (Buffet Magnet Middle School) and they are participating in this event. At the end of the day Friday they are 4-and-1, having won every match but the last one where they had developed a stripped motor and lost steering capability. The boys (and some girls) are having fun.

NASA is one of the sponsors of this event and even has a live webcast, as well as broadcasting on NASA TV.

I hope to publish some photographs and maybe even some video clips from the event.