Chris Sullivan

Professor Maw
Math 1040
8/5/2016

Introduction
This semester I was given the task of following and understanding the
statistics of a bag of skittles. As the semester went on I was able to better
understand the concept of statistics and able to work better with a group of
my peers to achieve completion of assignments. I was able to enjoy
examining a simple bag of skittles by following the progressions of learning
about statistics than I ever have by just eating them. This is my work for the
skittle term project. I have divided them up into the following parts:

In the first part of the project I had to determine what I thought the
outcome would be and also put down how many colors of each

skittle there was.

The second part of the project was about creating pie charts and

histogram.
The third part of the project was to summarize the data and write a

page about quantitative and qualitative data.

The fourth part of the project was about finding confidence levels

and to show the steps of what was assigned.

The fifth part of the project was a reflection paper about how I felt
about this entire project.

Project Part One

I myself have never counted the number of skittles in a bag, but my guess
was 30 pieces with equal number of colors in each bag. My reasoning is
some people may like certain colors and to not be bias they would provide an
equal number of colors in every bag. When I opened my bag I had 54 pieces
and they divided as such.

Yellow

Green
Orange
Red
Purple

11
10
13
14

Project Part Two

1. In our group most of us guessed that using a sample size as large as the
class, the propotions of each color would be equivilant. So essentially red,
green, purple, orange, and yellow would each be 20% of the bag. The
proportions of the colors were red 20.6%, orange 19.77%, yellow 21.04%,
green 19.24%, and purple 19.35%. These are all very close to 20% so it
seems our prediction was accurate.
2. Charts & Histogram:

3. The sample used in this project was a random sample. Since all
combinations of skittles bags had an equal chance of being selected it
was a random selection of which skittles bag was used. Although there
were outliers, the average proportion of each color was close. Thus, it it
would seem that our sample size was large enough to factor in outliers
and still not skew the average.

Project Part 3
Summary stats - Individual Portion
1. The distribution is bell shaped, a majority of the bag of skittles tended to
have 60 to 70 pieces of candy. Once I saw the graph I was a bit shocked that
the bag of skittles werent systematic, some of the bags were way below the
average, which in my opinion is a rip off for consumers. The Means for the
total class sample is 60.1 with the total pieces of candy being 5650. If my
Means were 53 and I times that by the 94 bags of skittles I would end up with
4982. We are talking about a 668-piece difference what is a very large gap in
totals of skittles.
2. The difference between categorical and quantitative data in which I
understand is categorical data describes characteristics and quality of
something, for example this weekend police gave out several speeding
tickets. Now if that statement said this weekend 10 police officers gave out
100 speeding tickets that would make it quantitative data, because it has
numerical value. For categorical data I would say plot and pie graphs would
be best because using percentage to express the entire value of the data. As
for quantitative data I would say histograms, box plot, line and bar graphs
would be great to use because they show separation of quantities in each
item. When it comes to what calculation doesnt work for categorical and
quantitative data I am not to sure but I will look into to it and find out.

Project Part Four

1. 99% confidence interval for proportion of yellow candies in a bag. For the
yellow candies I used the proportion 1189/5650 = .21044. I used the
expression

Since we are trying to get a 99%

confidence interval we get 2.575 from z.005 = 2.575. The 98% confidence
interval will be (0.1965, 0.2244)

The margin of error is

2. 95% confidence interval estimate for the mean number of candies. I used
excel to calculate the sample mean which was x = 58.25 and s = 5.56 (I
don't know how to have x with a bar on top of it so pretend x is the sample
mean) I then used the expression

Since this is a 95% confidence interval I used t.025. Evaluating this

expression gave me (57.13, 59.37)
3. For the critical values on the 98% confidence interval for the population
standard deviation I had Ll = 135.807 and Lu = 70.07. I then used the
expression

Plugging in values

965.562
965.562
<<
135.807
70.07

Evaluating this yields the interval (4.67, 6.51)

4. The first confidence interval means I am 99% sure the population
proportion for yellow candies is in the interval (0.1965, 0.2244). The
second interval means I am 95% sure the population mean number of
candies in the skittles bags will be in the interval (57.13, 59.37). The third
interval means I am 98% confident the population standard deviation lies
in the interval (4.67, 6.51).

Project Part Five

Term Project Reflection

I have learned a lot from this project this semester. I have learned that
something as simple as a bag of skittles are part of a statistic world I was
unaware even existed. I was unaware of things so random and that with a
random pack of skittles there is a mean and a frequency and so on.
The skills I learned from this project are working with others, which in
turn helps me in my other classes or even in my personal life. Being able to
work a situation out with others will help me grow and learn more as a
person.
There was a point during this project that my pride almost got in the
way of me asking a simple question. When we were entering information to
graph a pie chart and plot box I couldnt understand why my solutions where
different. Asking how my peers got the answer, they showed me my mistake.
Something as little as an extra number threw my answer off. So now, I
doublein fact triple check my work.
As I stated earlier something as little as counting the colors of skittles
has multiple steps that allow you to see different angles of information. Just
imagine stadiums of people: you have your home team fans, visiting team
fans and then being able to calculate records of wins and so on; its mind
blowing. For myself I work in a hospital and infection rates are taken
seriously. If we statistically have a high infection rate compared to other
hospitals then that is a problem.