Where do you think US Nationals 2010 should be held?

[Logan]

I am voting for detroit, not just because it's a neighboring state of mine, but because it's pretty much the center of the U.S. , it's relatively cheap (definitely cheaper than NY.), and it doesn't get that hot in august the average temperature July-August is 71.

While it obviously doesn't have as much to do as NY or DC, it is the optimal place for people who would just be going for the tournament because of the points I made before.

Man I'm way behind! when did Detroit become a state? [/sarcasm]



EDIT: I vote for anywhere in the center (or mid-north) of the united states.

 

[cuberkid10]

Nashville for sure!

 

[brunson]

I am voting for detroit, not just because it's a neighboring state of mine, but because it's pretty much the center of the U.S.

Read a map lately?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sou...,-98.58161&sspn=0.010809,0.018389&ie=UTF8&z=6

He should have used the search function!

Maybe he meant "center" in terms of population, but I still don't think that Detroit would be the center anyway. >.>

This is actually a really interesting page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_United_States_population

It shows how the center of population has moved since the late 1700s.

Looks like Kansas City, MO is pretty much right between the geographic and population centers of the US. I vote KC. (Or Denver)

 

[StachuK1992]

I am voting for detroit, not just because it's a neighboring state of mine, but because it's pretty much the center of the U.S.

Read a map lately?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sou...,-98.58161&sspn=0.010809,0.018389&ie=UTF8&z=6

He should have used the search function!

Maybe he meant "center" in terms of population, but I still don't think that Detroit would be the center anyway. >.>

This is actually a really interesting page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_United_States_population

It shows how the center of population has moved since the late 1700s.

Looks like Kansas City, MO is pretty much right between the geographic and population centers of the US. I vote KC. (Or Denver)

hmm..that is actually pretty interesting.
If only we had some means of knowing where all of the cubers are...

Brunson. I have an idea for you, since you seem to have fun with this sort of stuff.

Get the coordinates of every US competition held so far, as well as the 'population' of cubers at said competitions. Use this data to find out where people are most likely to be able to go.

 

[brunson]

I was thinking of something along those same lines. Find where every US cuber lives, weight them by best average, number of competitions attended and number of US nationals attended. Use that to create a weighted mean of the center of the US cubing community.

Don't have me do it, because I'm pretty sure I could play with the weighting algorithm until the answer ended up being Denver.

 

[StachuK1992]

I was thinking of something along those same lines. Find where every US cuber lives, weight them by best average, number of competitions attended and number of US nationals attended. Use that to create a weighted mean of the center of the US cubing community.

Don't have me do it, because I'm pretty sure I could play with the weighting algorithm until the answer ended up being Denver.

I'm pretty sure that we can't find out where everyone lives, let alone the people on these forums, which is why I was thinking that my previous idea could actually be plausible.
I understand where you're coming from, though. I just think that mine is *slightly* more plausible.

Hmm...who could we get to do this?

 

[brunson]

I can certainly get the numbers of cubers at each event and the datadump has the lat/log of each of the venues. I can't to it tonight, maybe I'll play with it later.

 

[brunson]

I can certainly get the numbers of cubers at each event and the datadump has the lat/log of each of the venues. I can't to it tonight, maybe I'll play with it later.

My wife is obsessed with finishing the Twilight series :rolleyes:, so that left me some time to dink with the data this morning.

Last night my thought was that some places have a *lot* of competitions, like 4 a year and that would give them an unfair advantage in weighting. But then I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that if I'm weighting based on attendees, then what I'm really doing is giving every participant in any comp a "vote" for that location. Thinking of it like that I was able to convince myself that it really was okay. If they can get people to show up four times a year, then more power to them.

I also thought about grouping it by city, but since each venue had its own lat/lon it would have simply been more work for almost no difference in the result. So here are the counts of attendees by competition:

mysql> select competitionId,
    ->        count(0) attendees, 
    ->        latitude, longitude
    -> from competition as c
    -> join ( select personId, competitionId
    ->        from result
    ->        group by personId, competitionId 
    ->      ) as r 
    ->      on r.competitionId = c.id
    -> where  year in ( 2008, 2009 ) 
    ->        and c.countryId = 'USA'
    -> group by competitionId;
+-------------------------------+-----------+----------+------------+
| competitionId                 | attendees | latitude | longitude  |
+-------------------------------+-----------+----------+------------+
| ArmonkSpring2008              |        35 | 41119199 |  -73708530 | 
| AuroraSummer2009              |        29 | 39719735 | -104803019 | 
| AustinOpen2008                |        24 | 30284073 |  -97731905 | 
| AustinSpring2009              |        38 | 30289088 |  -97741523 | 
| BerkeleyFall2008              |        63 | 37870736 | -122279811 | 
| BerkeleySpring2008            |        56 | 37872397 | -122266230 | 
| BerkeleySpring2009            |        60 | 37870736 | -122279811 | 
| BerkeleySummer2009            |        48 | 37870736 | -122279811 | 
| BigCubesSummer2009            |        27 | 40554452 |  -75535410 | 
| Boulder2008                   |        30 | 40005171 | -105266394 | 
| CaltechFall2008               |        80 | 34137855 | -118126316 | 
| CaptainsCove2008              |        26 | 41158319 |  -73212500 | 
| CaptainsCove2009              |        30 | 41158319 |  -73212500 | 
| CarnegieMellonFall2008        |        37 | 40444579 |  -79942892 | 
| CarnegieMellonSpring2009      |        48 | 40444579 |  -79942892 | 
| ChattahoocheeSpring2008       |        37 | 34047987 |  -84207763 | 
| ChattahoocheeSpring2009       |        31 | 34047987 |  -84207763 | 
| CincinnatiSpringOpen2008      |        37 | 39109808 |  -84532175 | 
| CincinnatiSummerOpen2008      |        36 | 39230058 |  -84374303 | 
| CornellSpring2008             |        30 | 42447576 |  -76476089 | 
| CumberlandValley2009          |        28 | 40237847 |  -77061025 | 
| DallasOpen2009                |        29 | 32775927 |  -96809374 | 
| DaVinciScience2008            |        40 | 40579993 |  -75521548 | 
| DecaturOpen2008               |        18 | 33774101 |  -84293943 | 
| DenverOpen2008                |        41 | 39677004 | -104962367 | 
| DenverOpen2009                |        39 | 39750859 | -105222399 | 
| DiscoveryScience10thAnniv2008 |        57 | 33769876 | -117867482 | 
| DiscoveryScience2008          |        57 | 33770350 | -117867940 | 
| DiscoveryScience2009          |        56 | 33769876 | -117867482 | 
| DrexelFall2008                |        42 | 39962947 |  -75248970 | 
| DrexelWinter2009              |        34 | 39962947 |  -75248970 | 
| EPGYCaliforniaOpen2008        |        58 | 37431985 | -122171071 | 
| EPGYStanfordWinter2009        |        68 | 37424487 | -122161587 | 
| FortLeeWinter2009             |        59 | 40855021 |  -73972934 | 
| HorizonsOpen2009              |        31 | 33761004 |  -84324794 | 
| IndianaSummerOpen2009         |        47 | 39960457 |  -86015178 | 
| IndianaWinterOpen2008         |        28 | 39166546 |  -86531051 | 
| KearnyKardinal2008            |        34 | 40757562 |  -74156599 | 
| LexingtonFallOpen2008         |        28 | 37998277 |  -84442605 | 
| MinnesotaOpen2008             |        27 | 44046425 |  -92496188 | 
| MinnesotaOpen2009             |        36 | 44046425 |  -92496188 | 
| MissouriOpen2009              |        19 | 39252796 |  -94607185 | 
| MotorCityOpen2009             |        47 | 42443118 |  -82906915 | 
| NewarkOpen2008                |        64 | 40744155 |  -74170336 | 
| NewarkWinter2009              |        94 | 40744155 |  -74170336 | 
| OhioOpen2009                  |        57 | 40005158 |  -83015403 | 
| PrincetonOpen2008             |        86 | 40348213 |  -74669214 | 
| SafeHaven2009                 |        49 | 41322143 |  -74803570 | 
| SanDiegoOpen2008              |        52 | 32730860 | -117146984 | 
| SanDiegoOpen2009              |        40 | 32730860 | -117146984 | 
| SanDiegoScience2009           |        18 | 32731458 | -117149877 | 
| SanFranciscoOpen2009          |       150 | 37804209 | -122448166 | 
| StetsonSpring2008             |        21 | 29034476 |  -81302825 | 
| TwinCities2009                |        47 | 44984628 |  -93294123 | 
| UCSD2008                      |        48 | 32864674 | -117238137 | 
| UCSDSummer2008                |        43 | 32875104 | -117239784 | 
| UPennSpring2009               |        41 | 39952635 |  -75190719 | 
| USOpen2008                    |       104 | 33752325 |  -84389803 | 
| UtahOpen2008                  |        26 | 40771537 | -111836886 | 
| UtahOpen2009                  |        29 | 40767020 | -111847995 | 
| VirginiaOpen2008              |        27 | 37270323 |  -76714836 | 
| WashingtonDCOpen2008          |        51 | 38818691 |  -77168125 | 
| WestchesterFall2008           |        60 | 41077005 |  -73788968 | 
| WisconsinOpen2008             |        19 | 43157494 |  -87909888 | 
+-------------------------------+-----------+----------+------------+
64 rows in set (0.46 sec)

Then it was simply a matter of treating it like a center of mass problem and averaging the lat/lon of every attendee:

mysql> select sum( latitude * attendees )/sum(attendees)/1000000 as lat, 
    ->        sum( longitude * attendees )/sum(attendees)/1000000 as lon
    -> from ( select competitionId,
    ->               count(0) attendees, 
    ->               latitude, longitude
    ->        from competition as c
    ->        join( select personId, competitionId
    ->              from result
    ->              group by personId, competitionId 
    ->            ) as r 
    ->            on r.competitionId = c.id
    ->        where  year in ( 2008, 2009 ) 
    ->               and c.countryId = 'USA'
    ->        group by competitionId
    -> ) as comps;
+-------------+--------------+
| lat         | lon          |
+-------------+--------------+
|  38.06346368 | -95.66539705 |
+-------------+--------------+
1 row in set (0.05 sec)

It's actually a pretty surprising result.

They're only about 250 miles apart. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=%2B37%C2%B0+41%27+49.15%22,+-91%C2%B0+48%27+34.44%22+(37.696987,+-91.809567)&daddr=38.06346368,+-95.66539705&hl=en&geocode=Fdo1PwId4RiH-g%3BFWjNRAIdC0NM-g&mra=ls&dirflg=w&sll=38.175592,-92.515869&sspn=1.349433,2.353821&ie=UTF8&ll=38.414862,-93.927612&spn=2.689873,4.707642&z=8

Edit: Fixed the attendees sum, but I'm not doing the center calculation correctly.
Edit2: Or am I? It's hard derive formulas and run shepherd on a bunch of four year olds at the same time...
Edit3: Fixed the final lat/lon.

 

[fanwuq]

How did you get your number of attendees? There definitely wasn't over 100 people at big cubes summer 09, even if you include the parents/siblings. Or... are you counting by people or events participated?

 

[brunson]

You are correct, I was counting each result rather than each person... I changed that calculation, but I'm still convincing myself I'm doing the mean calculation correctly.

 

[StachuK1992]

so, what's your final answer?

 

[brunson]

so, what's your final answer?

I think I'm going with 38.06346368N, -95.66539705W, Regis. Final answer.

 

[StachuK1992]

so, what's your final answer?

I think I'm going with 38.06346368N, -95.66539705W, Regis. Final answer.

woot woot. Any cubers to find a venue there?

 

[Bryan]

so, what's your final answer?

I think I'm going with 38.06346368N, -95.66539705W, Regis. Final answer.

Really? You don't want to exclude the US Open 2008 from the list? Seems like that would skew the results back to itself....

 

[royzabeast]

Hold it somewhere in the United Kingdom.

:fp The US nationals held in the UK.




I think it should be in the North. Minnesota would be perfect!

How could you possibly not understand that he was kidding?

I didn't even understand the sarcasm when he said to hold it in the UK. :fp

 

[brunson]

so, what's your final answer?

I think I'm going with 38.06346368N, -95.66539705W, Regis. Final answer.

Really? You don't want to exclude the US Open 2008 from the list? Seems like that would skew the results back to itself....

38.22668116, -96.09228521

It only moved it about 30 miles.

 

[krazedkat]

Just south of the US/Saskatchewan border. Or just north of it XD... So I can actually go!

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

I was thinking of something along those same lines. Find where every US cuber lives, weight them by best average, number of competitions attended and number of US nationals attended. Use that to create a weighted mean of the center of the US cubing community.

Don't have me do it, because I'm pretty sure I could play with the weighting algorithm until the answer ended up being Denver.

Uh-oh, most of my competitions were in China and I attended three US Nationals, with a best (3x3x3) average of 12.26.

 

[Bryan]

Just south of the US/Saskatchewan border. Or just north of it XD... So I can actually go!

Actually, if you can guarantee enough people, I'll hold a competition over there.

As for the "center" of the cubing population, that doesn't really matter too much. It's probably cheaper to fly from CA to NY than it is to fly from CA to KS or MO.

On a side note, the center of the registered CubingUSA people is in Illinois. Of course, this is skewed by the fact that account registration has been tied to competition registration in MN, IN, and MO.

 

[Waffle's Minion]

Boston, it would make a great first comp for me!