Eric LeSueuer submitted the following nomination.

Jonathon and I would like to nominate ourselves, and Dan Grinols for the Wylde Q. Chicken Award for our 2nd Quarter Statistics Project. We are all seniors (Class of 2002) and students in Carol Castellon's Statistics class.

For our 2nd Quarter statistics project, Mrs. Castellon wanted her students to integrate technology into a project dealing with a statistical topic. In the past, students have fulfilled this assignment by writing calculator programs, updating webpages, and testing new statistical software. We wanted to try something a little different. Frequently in class we watch "Teresa videos," which discuss real world applications of statistics. Eric had a video camera, and came up with the idea to do a similar project. We thought that it would be fun, but we had no idea what we would be getting ourselves into.

We decided that the topic we would discuss would be hypothesis testing and confidence intervals. But we needed a hook; something to drive the film. Based on an article in our textbook, we decided to research the "myth of the freshmen 15." We were able to use a small, portable camera, which gave us freedom to film spontaneous scenes and conduct candid interviews. With the freedom offered by this camera, we realized that the film was only limited by how much work we were willing to put into it. The problem was that once we got started, we kept creating new ideas for scenes. The following are some of the highlights of the movie:

• Simulated 40 lb weight gain during fall semester.
• Captions identifying group members as Professor Grinols, Professor Climer, and Professor LeSueur.
• Eric's dog, Rory, delivering statistical definitions to Dan via mail.
• Graph "punched-up" on computer is actually on a piece of paper scotch taped to computer monitor.
• Narrator emerging from cubby beneath Eric's staircase.
• Resorting to filming subbie yearbook photos of Dan, with Jonathon narrating, when Dan was detained at student production tech-week.
• Jonathon being pushed into the bushes south of the Illini Union, by a self-conscious undergraduate.

In the end, including scenes like those listed above made the film an entertaining, not just informative project. Our group put in more hours than would normally be necessary. Even after we were done filming, we spent many nights refining the scenes and trying to edit them into a coherent order. We put in about 60 man-hours into the project. But it was worth the work; we were able to turn in a project we were proud of and the whole class enjoyed. If we weren't second-semester seniors, we wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Even through we were upset upon not receiving an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, we think we are excellent candidates for the Wylde Q. Chicken award.