Weve all ate a bag of candy before. Sometimes the candies in those bags are various colors.
And sometimes, doesnt it seem like you were robbed of your favorite color of candy and flooded with
that one color that nobody likes? Im talking about how awesome red Skittles are and why do they even
produce yellow Skittles. Are the numbers of the Skittles candies colors completely random or is there
some increased probability to have green ones colors over red? Our Skittle term project for Math 1040
attempted to answer this question.
Organizing and Displaying Categorical Data:
Each member of the class purchased a 2.17-ounce bag of Original Skittles. Each student then
counted the number of red, orange, yellow, green, and purple candies from the bag.
My guess was that there would be more yellow candies than any other color. After graphing the data I
was surprised to see that the relative frequency was consistent at about 20% of each color of candy
being distributed. Also, the quantity per bag was well distributed. I didnt see any observation that I
would consider an outliers: the lowest total candies per bag was 53 and the highest was 66. The
distribution of the total class data is pretty close to my data distribution.
Count Count Count Count Count
Red Orange Yellow Green Purple Total
My Bag 10 12 17 9 14 62
Class Counts 464 439 485 449 431 2268
Below youll find the summary from the class:
Class Total Number of Candies by Color
550
500
Class Total Number of Candies
450 485
464 449
400 439 431
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
red orange yellow green purple
Candy Colors
Percentage of Candies by Color
19.0% 20.5%
19.8% 19.4%
21.4%
red orange yellow green purple
75% of the class were less than or equal to the third quartile of 61 pieces of candy in a bag. I had a total
of 62 pieces of candy in my bag. So, that puts me with the 25% of the class that had over 61 pieces of
candy in their bag. Granted that the standard deviation was 2.87 with the mean number of candies
being 59.6. Below you will find the 5-number summary for the total amount of candies in the class:
Here is a histogram for the total candies in each bag for the class.
You have to admit that the box plot below is fairly well distributed.
The purpose of taking sample data and calculating statistics from them is to apply those values to a
larger population. Because a population is larger than a sample, how well a sample statistic can be used
to estimate a population parameter is an issue. A confidence interval helps to solve this by providing a
range of values that the population parameter is likely to fall within. The intervals are constructed with a
certain level of confidence, reflected. This means that if the same population were to be examined on
multiple occasions and a parameter interval calculated each time, the intervals would contain the true
parameter in X% of cases.
With the data we constructed a 99% confidence internal for the population proportion of yellow candies
and a 95% confidence interval estimate for the population mean number of candies per bag. You can
see the result of both below
In the end, this Skittles project has helped me understand how statistics can model the real
world. It also helped me learn the process of statistics from collecting data to presenting results. My
view on statistics has changed because of this class and project. Statistics is very different from the math
I am a little more comfortable with. Statistics pulls real world information and data as opposed to some
of the more abstract concepts in Algebra.
The project is about organizing and analyzing the data found from bags of Skittles. The goal here
is to help us apply the statistic skills we have learned this semester and use it in a real life situation. First,
each member of the class purchased a 2.17-ounce bag of Original Skittles. Each student then counted
the number of red, orange, yellow, green, and purple candies from the bag. I had 62 candies in my bag:
10 red, 12 orange, 17 yellow, 9 green, and 14 purple. Based on the proportions of the class total, Im
willing to bet that Skittles makes approximately the same quantity of each color of its candies. But it is
probable that a disproportionate amount will end up in random bags. To me, all of the data we gather
and analyzed implies that the company does manage to keep the number of each color of candy about
the same in each individual bag that they sale.
Practically everything that I studied in this course were concepts that Ive never heard of before.
I have to admit, I do wish that it was plausible to take this course at a slower pace just so I could fully
digest everything. Practically everything covered in this course could be applied in software
development.
