Diet Soda Comparison Project

By Guillermo Rivas 2/8/2012

ABSTRACT Under Construction INTRODUCTION Have you ever wondered which type of Diet soda weighs more? Maybe this only matters to those who want to get the best bang for their buck. Therefore, I will conduct an experiment to find out which type of diet soda weighs the most. I weighed the most popular diet sodas: Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, and Coke Zero. I believe Diet Coke weighs the most and Coke Zero weighs less since the name gives a hint of the value zero. METHODS The Data was collected in Mr. Jeanss statistic class, at Taft College in the STEM research Lab. I used TC-STATS to generate a random sample of 15 for each type of soda. The random sample helped give all the Populations get an equal chance to get selected and through this reduce bias. Each can of diet soda was labeled with a number according to its population size. The population size for Diet coke was 85, Diet Pepsi 96, and Coke Zero 72. I used a precise electronic scale and weighed my sample in Grams, in order to get an accurate weight. The data I collected was put into TC-STATS and sorted in columns according to the can number and weight of each can which was randomly selected. This data can be seen in the appendix. Results After organizing the data, I used TC-STATS to produce the five number summary which consist of: Minimum, Quartile 1, Median, Quartile 3 and the Max. You can see this information on figure 1.2 presented below. However, for this particular Data I will compare only the mean and the median as these values best represent the weight comparison of the cola. Diet cokes Mean was 372.1807g, and its Median was 372.98g. Coke Zeros Mean is 372.1207 and its median was 372.06. Diet Pepsi's Mean was 369.8747 and the median was 369.64. To further give a better graphical display. I produced this stacked box plot using TC-STATS shown below in Figure 1.3, you can see for yourself the comparison between the three types of colas. As you can see by the graph, Diet Pepsi has distribution that is skewed right and Diet Coke is skewed left and coke zero appears to be bell shaped. For Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke the proper center of measure would be the Median since they are skewed. Coke Zeros appropriate measurement is the mean since it is relatively symmetric. Overall, comparing the data according to the Median and mean, it seems that Diet coke is the heaviest. Coke Zero is the second heaviest and Diet Pepsi is the lightest.

Figure 1.3

Figure 1.2

Comments Although, every attempt to eliminate bias from our sample, there is still the possibility of chance error, chance error is a type of bias that can occur during the measurement or weighting process. Overall, the above information was collected to the best of my abilities using proper ethics and applying the scientific method. THIS PROJECT IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. CONCLUSION UNDER CONSTRUCTION Appendix

Diet Coke can # 22 82 26 63 25 35 60 59 17 44 1 9 19 37 2

Diet Coke weight 370.82 371.86 375.35 375.38 364.85 372.98 370.8 373.22 369.95 373.73 370.86 373.25 371.84 373.54 374.28

Coke Zero can # 51 13 40 33 59 37 47 27 16 25 72 58 63 10 43

Coke Zero weight 371.58 372.06 370.92 373.57 371.06 372.19 372.79 372.28 371.85 371.76 372.71 371.98 373.45 369.97 373.64

Diet Pepsi can # 63 86 17 30 18 34 55 25 12 23 35 16 75 73 60

Diet Pepsi weight 370.39 369.29 370.12 368.27 371.94 371.09 367.69 368.4 369.36 369.64 375.22 368.9 366.54 370.19 371.08

Bibliography Pictures for cover page were taken from: Diet coke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diet-Coke-Can.jpg Diet Pepsi http://www.brooklyntobacco.com/pepsi-diet-12oz/ Coke Zero http://www.productreview.com.au/p/coca-cola-coke-zero.html