Set up your computer

Installation

Install R 3.4.1 from https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/cran/ . (Requires administrator privellege)
Install RStudio Desktop free version from https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/
Follow these steps to install Git for Windows. (Requires administrator privellege)

Installation Verification

Launch RStudio and you should see a program window like this:
Click the File menu, select New Project…, then Version Control and Git;
Copy & paste this URL: https://github.com/cities/datascience2017.git into the the Repository URL textbox;
Click Create Project.

If you see a popup box that says “Clone Repsitory” with a progress bar and then RStudio refreshes, then your installation is working.

Why R

Free, as in beer & speech
Powerful and flexible
Large and growing community
More than 13,000 packages and counting
Graphics Gallery
Interactive Web Apps: Interactive Plots, Dashboard, Widget …

Introduction to R and RStudio

Class project

For the class project, you are expected to create a R package with the following requirements and commit it to GitHub: 1. Contains at least one self-contained function; 1. Completed with necessary documentation; 1. Passes R package check and test(s); 1. [Advanced] includes a vignette that demonstrates the usage of the package.

You can take and/or re-organize code from your current work or start from scratch. Take the feasibility of completing in a week into consideration when selecting project ideas.

If you don’t have a feasible project idea at the moment, consider writing a R package that reads and visualizes the bike counts on Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum Crossing. Daily traffic counts data for these two bridges can be found here. At the minimum, your package should be able to: