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Aspen Curtis

Mr. Price

MATH 1040

09 January 2018

Skittles Term Project

Introduction

This project is determining the proportions of the different colors of Skittles within a

standard 2.17 oz bag.

Procedure

1. Take a 2.17 oz bag of Original Skittles

2. Divide the Skittles into groups of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Purple

3. Count the Skittles in each group and record totals

4. Get a total number summary

5. Create a pie-chart

6. Collect the number summaries from four other classmates, five including yours

7. Create a pie chart to represent the proportions of color

Categorical Data

Red 0.191
Orange 0.222
Yellow 0.175
Green 0.206
Purple 0.206
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Group Statistics

red yellow orange green purple total

11 20 11 9 11 62 kenzie
12 11 14 13 13 63 aspen
14 11 11 10 11 57 chase
7 8 15 12 18 60 mac
13 17 8 14 7 59 destry

57 67 59 58 60 301

proportion
red yellow orange green purple
0.189 0.223 0.196 0.193 0.199
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Observation

I was really quite surprised with the results of the proportion of different colored Skittles.

I truly thought that some of the colors would make up more of a majority, but in reality all of the

colors are approximately the same. Even after taking samples from four of my classmates, the

results evened out more. Both graphs looked so similar and the proportions were so similar.

Quantitative Data

Number of Bags: 29

Number of Skittles in My Bag: 63

Mean: 59

Standard Deviation: 2.1

Min - 54 Q1 - 57 Med - 59 Q3 - 60 Max - 63

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5 Number Summary Boxplot

Observation

The frequency histogram is pretty normally distributed. There are no known outliers with

the samples collected. The overall data is slightly lower than mine- which is what I was

expecting to be-but being that my bag of candies was the maximum of the class total, overall it

does not affect the overall distribution too significantly.

Reflection

Categorical data is types of data that can be divided into groups whereas quantitative data

expresses a certain quantities or range. So, in this experiment, the categorical data of the different

colors of skittles showed proportions of what was in the bag, whereas the quantitative took only

the individual amounts of each person’s bag of Skittles, with no care to what color or category it

fit into. Graphs like pie and pareto charts will give the best representation of the categorical data

because it shows the individual categories and their proportions. Box plots, histograms, and bar

graphs display quantitative data the best because it displays the numerical and general

information in an organized, easy-to-read format. In this experiment to calculate proportions, I

used the proportions to express the certain categories from the bags. When using calculations to

find mean, median, and standard deviation will show how the bag size differs throughout the

class, proving whether Skittles stays true to their packaging.

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Confidence Intervals

A confidence interval gives a parameter in which a specified probability lies and it serves

as a good range to predict a certain outcome.

99% Confidence Interval for Yellow: .161 and .284

95% Confidence Interval for True Mean: 60 and 60.4

The 99% interval for the true

proportion of yellow candies means,

that the true proportion will lie between

.161 and .284, which if you refer back

to the original categorical data, one can see that both my and my groups combined data lie in that

interval.

The 95% interval for the true mean number of candies per bag means that the true mean

will lie between 60 and 60.4, which again, if looking at both my and my groups summaries,

some numbers lie between that interval, making those numbers closer to the true mean.

Hypothesis Testing

This is when one conducts a test on an assumption about a population parameter, and can

be used to find the statistical significance.

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.05 Significance Level Test Claim 20% all Skittles are Red: Fail to Reject the Null

.01 Significance Level Test Claim of Mean of 55 Skittles: Fail to Reject the Null

When analyzing the .05 Significance level

claiming that 20% of all Skittles are red, after

finding the p value score, it is significantly larger

than the significance level of .05, thus we fail to

reject the null because it cannot prove the null can

be rejected. It is the same with the mean of 55 skittles, as close as the p value does come, it is

still slightly larger, causing us to fail to reject the null as well.

Reflection

In order to do an interval estimate, the data must have a sample statistic, a specific

confidence level, and a margin of error. To do a hypothesis test one must have a normality of

data, failure outcomes, level of significance and a null hypothesis. All of my samples met the

conditions for both interval estimates and hypothesis testing. Some errors could have included

type 1-rejecting the null when it should not have been, type 2-failing to reject the null when it it

should have been rejected, and incorrect data. The sampling could have been taken on a larger

scale, giving a bigger sample which would display more accurate data. In conclusion, I have
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discovered how math can be applied to real world problems, which gives math and formulas

more value in my everyday life.