Posted: April 25th, 2025

ENGINEERING PROBABILITY PROJECT

 Aim: The overall aim of these projects is to analyze real-world data.  The specific objectives are:

1. To sample two sets of data from the real-world.
2. To summarize each set of data statistically.
3. To perform statistical chi-square tests on each set of data.
4. To describe the above steps, data, and results in a report.

On the cover of each Project Part report, please transcribe the following statement:

“I _________________ did not give or receive any assistance on this project, and the report submitted is wholly my own.”

Write your name in the blank and sign below it. You may use an electronic signature, such as 

Adobe SignLinks to an external site.

.

Tasks for Part II

Data Collection: Students will collect two sets of data from the real world.

Set 1 will be collected from a large number of observations (at least 100) for a continuous random variable from a population that is suspected to be normally distributed. (Naturally Occurring)

Examples of such data include the body weight of people, the circumferences of oranges, the extension length of rubber bands at the point at which they burst, etc.

Set 2 will be the inter-arrival time of a sequence of 100 or more events.  First, record the actual clock time (to the nearest second, e.g. 2:43:18pm) of each of at least 100 consecutive events, such as the actual time that a customer enters the post office. Then, determine the interval between occurrences by taking the difference between successive event times.  Consequently, Set 2 will comprise of at least 99 inter-arrival times. You may use ‘second’ as a unit of time.

Descriptive Statistics: For both Sets 1 and 2, use software to do the following:

• Calculate the sample mean and sample standard deviation.
• Calculate the quartiles Q1, Q2, and Q3.
• Construct a box-and-whisker plot.
• Construct a frequency table.
• Construct a frequency histogram.