Stefanie Hopkins

Professor Tiffany Hilton

Math 1040
4 December 2014

Skittles Project

In our term project for this semester we each purchased a bag of Skittles and then entered the
categorized data of candy colors together as a class for organizing and carrying out each part of
the project. Then we took and reported a small sample of the data that we were split into
smaller groups for. We took this smaller sample by using Stat-Crunch to randomly select three
bags(rows) of the class data and reported on our findings. For part 3 of the project we
organized and displayed data of proportions of each color of candy by creating Pie Charts and
Pareto Charts and explained our observations of the results of the class population compared
to our groups sample and our individual bags. Then we analyzed the variable and mean
number of candies per bag. In this part we did collected the mean, standard deviation and 5
number summary for the class data. We also created a frequency Histogram and Boxplot to
help better understand this data and observe its distribution in comparison to our single bags.
Last, for part 4 of the project we carried out inferential statistics and constructed a few
separate confidence intervals to understand things such as the proportion of yellow candies,
the true mean number of candies per bag, and the standard deviation of the number of candies
per bag in the class data sample. We also performed Hypothesis Tests on whether 20% of all
Skittles candies are red, and if the mean number of candies in a bag is 55. We also discussed the

conditions for performing each of these intervals and tests and, whether or not our sample met
these conditions.
This was a difficult project for me since I had never used any software like Stat-Crunch before
but it was also helpful in better understanding the visual and overall of concepts weve been
learning in class. With going into Sociology I can see where this will be helpful skills to know and
Im sure ones that will also be helpful in doing them in the future. I worked really hard on these
so it was satisfying to see my work come together and piecing parts of the project together as
well. Professor Hilton has been so wonderful and patient in helping me in all of it as well. She
helps to break it down for you when you have questions to better understand concepts. This
has been one of my most difficult classes yet but I think was helpful in preparing me for my
University level, future studies.