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Introduction
Skittles make me happy, especially the purple ones. Have you ever
wondered how many skittles are in a package? Or how many skittles of your
favorite flavor are in a package? All of these questions and more can be
answered using statistics. Each student in our statistics class purchased one
2.17-ounce bag of Original Skittles and record the following data mine is in
the chart below:
Number of Number of Number of Number of Number of
red orange yellow green purple
candies candies candies candies candies
15 11 15 11 10
Each student submitted their data to our instructor who compiled the data,
see Class results table. We used the compiled data to find out all kinds of
information about the average 2.17-ounce bag of original Skittles.
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
Class rainbow
red
497 513
orange
yellow
green
purple
491 496
518
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
When you pull the first skittle out of the bag it is most likely going to be
yellow and least likely to be green. However, when looking at the
percentages for our total class data the difference between the percentage
of yellow and green skittles is only 1.073%. So, the company really does try
to keep a good balance between the flavors in every bag. This is what I
expected. My data of course didnt mirror the class percentages. My yellow
and red were the same percent of the candy at 24.194% each, followed by
orange and green with the percentage of 17.742% each and purple with
16.129%. The difference between the my highest and lowest percentage was
8.065%. For a purple lover, I just picked the wrong bag. The percentages of
my bag were not as close to the factory desired 20% per color/bag as the
class data, but that is expected.
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
Class results
Orang Total in
Red e Yellow Green Purple Bag
12 9 10 11 13 55
8 13 13 13 18 65
15 11 15 11 10 62
18 11 17 8 10 64
15 16 10 10 11 62
12 13 15 13 10 63
9 13 15 13 9 59
16 7 12 16 11 62
15 7 11 17 11 61
10 18 13 6 13 60
12 13 10 11 13 59
13 11 4 16 18 62
13 7 14 15 11 60
11 18 18 5 13 65
9 12 17 14 10 62
9 14 12 10 17 62
13 7 11 13 10 54
12 16 17 9 6 60
12 12 9 10 17 60
17 12 15 1 10 55
17 13 8 8 15 61
12 10 12 13 13 60
9 13 17 13 7 59
8 13 14 13 12 60
16 8 9 15 8 56
10 9 17 17 6 59
17 16 4 13 11 61
10 12 8 14 9 53
10 12 21 10 8 61
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
12 9 11 12 10 54
20 15 6 14 8 63
13 10 18 12 12 65
9 7 10 16 22 64
8 16 11 8 11 54
9 14 8 18 10 59
9 10 19 8 17 63
13 18 8 12 11 62
16 7 15 9 15 62
12 9 15 7 12 55
10 14 7 10 14 55
13 13 8 12 13 59
9 8 14 15 12 58
Totals
:
513 496 518 491 497 2515
20.39 19.72 20.59 19.52 19.76 100.00
8% 2% 6% 3% 1% 0%
Using the total number of candies in each bag in the class sample, calculate
the:
Mean=59.9
standard deviation of sample=3.32
5-number summary
Minimum value=53.0
First quartile=58.8
Median=60.0
Third quartile=62.0
Maximum value=65.0
Number of candies in my bag=62
Number of bags in the class sample=42
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
frequency histogram
boxplot
(Both histogram and boxplot done most easily in StatCrunch) Your graphics
must have descriptive titles and be appropriately labeled.
The shape of the distribution resembles a bell curve. Around 16 bags had 59-
62 pieces of skittles candy the left margin (7) between 53-56 and the right
margin (3) between 65-68. The graph reflects what was expected based on
the project results.
Reflection
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
how many sales a store had in a day or how much rain fell within the last
week in your city. It is best to collect both types of data if possible to draw
more accurate conclusions and answer questions with as much confidence
as possible. Bar graphs and pie charts make sense for categorical data. Bar
graphs compare the sizes of categories, and pie charts are best used with
categorical data because they help us see what percentage of the whole
each category constitutes. Stemplots, histograms, and boxplots make sense
for quantitative data. Stemplots show shapes of distributions and organize
numbers. Histograms, like stemplots, show shapes of distributions of data.
So we can tell if the distribution is skew and if so in which direction. Box
plots reveal how the data are spread out and is a graph of the five-number
summary of your data.
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
The portion of yellow skittles that will fall between .185 and .226 is 99%.
Additionally, 2.575 is the critical value associated with the 99% confidence.
The standard deviation or errors of 2.575 will be the confidence interval that
becomes (p). It will be represented in 99/100 samples. Any sample
proportion greater than this value (2.575) from the population proportion will
result in a confidence interval that does not contain (p). It can be expected in
1/100 samples collected.
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
We are 95% confident that the mean number of candies per bag is between
58.846 and 60.916. A confidence interval of the mean uses the T-distribution
to determine the critical value. The t-deviation uses sample standard
deviation to estimate the population standard deviation, because it has a
larger spread than the z-distribution (represented in the above population).
The t-value for the 95% confidence interval is 2.009 represented from the
distribution table. Sample proportions within 2.009 standard errors from the
population mean will have a confidence interval including the mean number
of skittles. This should occur in 95% of all samples.
HYPOTHESIS TEST
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
10
Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
hypothesis isnt necessarily the opposite of the hypothesis rather, the null
and alternative hypothesis is assumed true until evidence proves otherwise.
The four possible outcomes of null hypothesis testing are: 1) reject the null
when the alternative is true, 2) do not reject the null when the null is true, 3)
reject the null when the null is true (Type 1 Error), and 4) do not reject the
null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true (Type II error).
2-
http://support.minitab.com/en-us/minitab/17/topic-library/basic-statistics-
and-graphs/hypothesis-tests/basics/what-is-a-hypothesis-test/
REFLECTION
There are three conditions for interval testing: 1) simple random sample,
reporting are possible but the larger the sample that is collected, the
Over the course of both preparing for and completing this project, the
challenging to grasp (still are), but the reward for understanding the material
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
human experience.
Take for example the Skittles candy. I learned that each bag of skittles candy
is unique. The possible combinations are many. The chances of two Skittles
packets being exactly the same are very rare. The chances of me being able
to select two randomly selected Skittles packets that are exactly the same -
is even more unlikely. Possible, yes but very unlikely (especially because I
deliberately do not eat them very often). One sample might contain more
greens, the other less yellows, or what not. As is with human relations, each
sampling of Skittles (new person that I meet) that is enjoyable is all about
My conclusion is this: when I began this project, I had no idea that I would
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Aaron Weyburn
Skittles Project part 1
Math 1040
Elizabeth Jones
have found this course ultimately challenging, but I do feel that I ended up
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