Mart Price Challenge

A Competition for Orkney students in S4 to S6 or any learner 13 years and above

Farmers need to understand the market: to judge when to buy and sell, and to decide what to stock for next year. Can you improve on the traditional ‘Mart Report’? We want to see a range of ideas. You can submit one visualisation, or a few – try a few different approaches. All you need is a pencil and paper!

Our panel of experts will award prizes to their favourites including “Best creative visualisation” and “Most understandable visualisation”.

Closing date: Friday 29th October 2021

Mart Data Competition Rules:

  1. Open to Orkney students in S4 to S6 or anyone learner age 13 years and above. Participants can either work as individuals or in teams of 2 to 4.
  2. The data presented must relate to the following sale at the Orkney Auction Mart: Monday 16th August: Special Sale of Store Cattle, also Prime & OTMs
  3. Data should be derived from the Mart Report in the Orcadian, or as posted on the Mart website: https://www.orkneymart.com/Reports
  4. Under-18 entries must come from a school e-mail address or using an adult email id and be sent through filling this google form: Orkney Data Visualisation Challenge and all the files to be emailed to Dave Craig, Projects Specialist at Young Engineers and Science Clubs Scotland (dave.craig@scdi.org.uk) by Friday 29th October 2021.
  5. Please send the link via https://wetransfer.com with the main contact’s name and/or your team name (if applicable) as the subject line.
  6. Prizes of Amazon vouchers (up to £50) will be awarded to the best entries, in the opinion of a panel of judges provided by the Mart and OISF.

HOT TIPS

A good format would be:

• useful to buyers and sellers

• concise and numerate

• work for future sales

• help analysis

You might use digital tools, or it might be hand drawn, or created another way. For inspirations, check out this website: Information is Beautiful .

The emphasis is on data analysis and communication: an expert knowledge of farm animals is not required! If you would like to know more, some jargon is explained below, or the experts at Orkney Mart will answer questions sent to dave.craig@scdi.org.uk from a school e-mail.

Some useful terminologies:

Heifer: Cow that has not calved; OTM: Over Thirty Months; Steer: young neutered male cattle; Prime: ready for slaughter; Store: for keeping and feeding

Codes for breeds of cattle:

AA: Aberdeen Angus; SH: Shorthorn; BB: Belgian Blue; LIM: Limousin; CH: Charolais and SA: Salers

See also: Official cattle breeds and codes – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)