In August, University of Arizona--Yuma sent two representatives to train as coaches for a new program called The Science of Baseball. UofA's College of Engineering in conjunction with Arizona's professional baseball team, the Diamondbacks, held a camp for middle-schooler's.

The purpose of the camp is to encourage students to seek a higher degree in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. By incorporating topics like statistics, ball trajectories, elasticity and nutrition as applied to baseball, the camp makes what might have been seen as boring studies exciting and fun.

The students participated in activities that encouraged them to think outside the box, such as measuring and calculating strike zones using statistics and histogram plots. Then, they created paper replicas of their strike zone to use as pitching targets.

The camp, held this summer at the Diamondbacks Spring Training Facility, was developed with input from numerous UofA faculty, researchers, and students from the Colleges of Medicine, Education and Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Photo by Alberto Urbieta