Today is the last day of Statistics. I just took my AP Statistics Exam yesterday, and it was not that bad. I am glad that this school year is finally coming to an end. I am also very glad that I finally finish my statistics project. Here it is http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dhrnzd9q_68gchmpqfs.I hope you like my powerpoint. Even though this project was very time consuming, I now know how it feels to be a real statistician. Thanks to Ms. Blanchet I now know how to design an experiment, conduct it, and analyze it. I am very proud of the results of my project. I am glad that I have taken this class.

Too many data!!!!

I finally finish entering my data into Excel, and it was very time-consuming. It took me about 3 hours to enter 300 data. It was so time consuming because for each city on my list I have to use Google map to find out how far it is from New Orleans. I have to do that about 75 times for the different places that I have. I then use the chart wizard on Excel to create my histogram. I needed to do a five number summary on my data but I do not know how to do that. So I use the amazing search engine Google to find out how to compute the five number summary in Excel. Just a note a five number summary is just a list of the minimum, the 25^th quartile, the median, the 75^th quartile, and the maximum of my data. So I find an awesome website that helps me with this problem. http://www.stat.unc.edu/teach/rosu/Stat31/E1_43.html is the website that I used. It is so easy to compute the five number summary of a data set. All I have to do is type the word Quartile in the Excel prompt and highlights all my data and voila my five number summary is given to me. As for the box plot, I will use the website that I have found last week. Just a note: a box plot is a graph of the five number summary, and my box plot will show outliers. I also need to find the mean and the standard deviation of my data. I do not remember how to do that in Excel. So again I used the amazing search engine Google to find out how to do this. http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Normal/stdexcel.htm is a very thorough and good website. It teaches me how to find the mean and the standard deviation step-by-step with picture. Just a note: the mean is the average value of a data set and the standard deviation is a measure of variability or dispersion around the mean. The more spread a data, the higher the standard deviation. I also need to do a one sample t test on my data. A one sample t test is a test that tests the validity of a claim made. It is used for a simple random sample of size n from a population that has the Normal distribution with mean and standard deviation. It has the t distribution with n-1 degrees of freedom. I use Google to find out about how to do a one sample t test in excel but I could not find anything so I use the official website for Excel. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP052016751033.aspx?pid=CH062528011033 is the website that I used. I have to install the Analysis ToolPak, which took some time and it was confusing. So I use another website http://www.bioss.ac.uk/smart/unix/mbasexc/slides/sl18.htm and it really helps. All in all I am glad that I have finished putting all my data analysis and I am ready to move on to creating a “hot” powerpoint.

Analyzing Data

Now I am ready to analyze my data. First of all I need to gather all my data into one pile, since I have it all over the place. Then I have to spend hours upon hours trying to calculate the distance in miles each place is from New Orleans. I will use Google map to help me calculate the miles. After that I have to put all of my data into Excel. This, too, will be a time consuming process. I will have two columns; one column will have the number of miles, and the other column will be the number of people. After that I will have to arrange the data in ascending order by miles. This is an extremely easy process because all I have to do is click a button and voila the data will be in ascending order by miles. Then I have to figure out how I was going to make a box plot. Well I figure out that making a box plot in Excel is very complicated. So I use this website http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/BoxPlot/?version=1.6.0_10&browser=Mozilla&vendor=Sun_Microsystems_Inc. to help me in my process with making a box plot. This interactive box plot really helps simplify the process of making one. All I have to do is copy and paste the data into this, and tada I got me a box plot that can identify outliers. Another graph I need to do is a histogram. I have learned how to make a histogram in Excel before so it will not be too hard. The only problem I might have is figuring the scale for my category. I want to use a scale that seems appropriate to my data and does not significantly skew my data. I also want a scale that will make my data have a Normal distribution. However I am thinking that I might have to exclude outliers so that my data have a Normal distribution. I will probably encounter a lot of problem with analyzing my data, but I will try my best to do what I want to do.

Data Collection?

I am already done with my data collection. I had asked about 300 people what city and state they are from. I got people from around the United States. There were people from New York, Florida, California, Illinois, and many more. There were people even from other countries such as Romania, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and Korea. I have lots of fun while collecting my data. I get to learn a little bit more about my customers and their cultures. The next thing I needed to do is analyze my data. I have found a good website to help me in this process. Here is the link http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/stat-data/Topics.htm#rrtopic. This website gave me all sort of information I need to analyze my data. It gave me information on things such as the Central Limit Theorem, which is basically a theorem that states that if a random sample has a size of more than 30 samples then the distribution if this data set approximately follows the Normal distribution. This website also talked about removing outliers because outliers can greatly affect the distribution of a data set. This website also talks about the significant and confidence test and what it is used for. There is also a very interesting section in this website called Kind of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. When I started taking AP Statistics, we have to read a book called How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. It was a very interesting book and it taught me how to look at statistical facts more closely than I did before. Well this website gave examples of “statistical lies” and it helped remind me that I should not do this in my data analysis. I am planning to do a box plot, a histogram, and a one-sample T test. I am also planning to give the five-number summary, the outliers, the mean, and the standard deviation of my data. I hope that my data analysis will helped people be able to understand my data more.

Who Am I Suppose to Present My Data to?

Now that I am done with my data analysis toolbox I need to start looking for someone to present my data to. Since my topic is about tourists, I think I should present my project to the people at the New Orleans Tourist Bureau. So what I did is that I use the Google search engine to find out who is on the staff for New Orleans Tourist Bureau. Well I find out the real name of this tourist bureau is New Orleans: The Convention and Visitors Bureau. I scroll down the main page to find the contact information. I was surprised about the list of people that is on the contact information page. Here is the site link http://www.neworleanscvb.com/contacts/. So I scroll down and found the tourism section. This is just what I am looking for. There is an email address for tourism marketing, and there is also phone numbers and email addresses of the sales managers and vice president of tourism. What fine luck! It was not that hard for me to find someone to present my information. Now my only problem is that if they would come to see my presentation. I hope they do because I worked really hard on it. Also, my information will be very useful to them because it is about tourists. They could use my information to find out where they should advertise more about New Orleans. My project could go on to great length as it may be able to help bring in more businesses for New Orleans during a bad economy time.

I also would like to present my information to the Times-Picayune. My information would either be in the Living or Travel section of the newspaper since it is about New Orleans tourism. So I went to NOLA.com to find out the contact information for the Times-Picayune. It took me a while to find it, but I was able to find a toll-free number for the Times-Picayune http://www.nola.com/contactus/. My article in the newspaper will be able how New Orleans is like a cultural gumbo. New Orleans is like a cultural gumbo because of the tourists. My project will prove that tourists come from all over the world to New Orleans. So this mean that New Orleanians can learn about other cultures right in their own hometown. I am so excited about my project. I really hope that these people mentioned above will come to see my presentation.

Data Analysis Toolbox Revised

So I have been working on my data analysis toolbox. There is a few more changes I made to it. These changes include talking about how New Orleanians could have a taste of the world right from their hometown. New Orleanians are always talking about going somewhere else to learn about other cultures. But a lot of people from other cultures come to New Orleans. New Orleans is like a cultural gumbo. So if New Orleanians go to downtown New Orleans and talk to the tourists, they could have a taste of many different cultures right from the own hometown. Other changes I made include adding another bias. I already have two biased; time and reliability. The other bias that my math teacher suggested I added is events. People come to New Orleans for different reasons. Some come just for fun and some come for business reasons. I also added how I am going to use Google map to calculate the number of miles away from New Orleans people come from. We also talked about how I can make a raised histogram of the United States dividing it into regions. I already planned to make a histogram and a box plot so that will be just fine. All of these things really help improve my project. My project now is going to be so awesome.

Data Collection

I am still in the process of collecting my data. I have collected a lot of data. I think I have collected about three hundred people already. There is one thing I did different last weekend then I did the previous weekends. I ask where my customers are from city and state. Before I just ask what state they are from, but now I also ask what city. By doing this I can be more precise in my data collection. Since I have to calculate the number of miles by using this information, I want to be as precise as possible. This project have really help me to get to know my customers better.

Changes Made in My Data Analysis Toolbox

Ms. Blanchet, my statistic teacher, have just give us back our Data Analysis Toolbox paper. On my paper, Ms. Blanchet told me I need to add interpretations, inferences, and graphs. So I made a lot of changes to my paper. My paper went from about half a page to more than a page. The first thing I did is that I put my data analysis toolbox in an outline form instead of paragraph form. I also include a section about how the information will be presented. I will give the five-number summary for my data. I will present my information with a histogram and a box plot. I will also include the mean, standard deviation, and outliers (if there is any) for my data. Also, a one-sample t test will be used to infer about the population of tourists. I decided to use a one-sample t test because I have no information on the population, and I have an unknown standard deviation. The t test gives me more variability than a z test, which is just what I needed. Also, at the end I included the question for my project. “How far is one willing to travel to downtown New Orleans?” This website http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/stat-data/Topics.htm#rwsaq here really helps me with my data analysis toolbox. It gives me a lot of information about “What is Statistical Analysis?” So according to this website there is four steps for “studying a problem through the use of statistical data analysis. Step One is defining the problem. Step Two is collecting the data. Step Three is analyzing the data and Step Four is reporting the results. So with my data analysis toolbox I am basically finished with Step One and Step Three. I am currently working on Step Two. Hopefully, I will be done with Step Two soon.

Pi Day

Since we have been preparing for our annual Pi Day, we were not able to blog. But anywho,

HAPPY PI(E) DAY EVE !!!

Rubric Feedback

I was browsing through lots of blogs today. Most of the blogs I browse through was in a different language, so I didn’t quite understand what it is about. Luckily, I found a blog that was quite interesting. This is the link http://greentransportandenergy.blogspot.com/. This blog is about green transport and energy. It talks about hybrid cars. It also talks about ways one could make their cars “greener” for the environment. It also have a lot of statistics in there. What I really like about this blog is that it has pictures and data that are related to its subject. The pictures were not random. The pictures help the readers to easily visualize what is being discussed in the blog. So in the rubric, I recommend that there should be something about not just posting random pictures for the heck of it. The pictures need to be related to the subject at hand. If the pictures used are visually interesting, then there will get all the points for awesome pictures.

Also, the blog rubric should includes such things as turning things on time, the number of words require in each blogs, and content. The blogs cannot be totally random. The blogs need to be about the progress of each student’s project. These blogs should be detailed enough so that the reader will know what the student is currently doing. Also, if student do more than expected, then they will be able to receive a higher score or extra points. Also there should include some data about their project in their blogs. In this way the teacher can be sure that the students are doing what they are suppose to be doing and not making things up. Also, the rubric should be very precise in what the teacher wants to see in the blogs of her student.

Yay! I reached about 200 customers!!!!

So over the weekend I was able to ask about another 100 customers where they are from. I got customers from all over the United States from Washington D.C. to California. There were also customers from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and Canada! It was an awesome experience. It also help me by being more friendly with my customers, giving a better and caring customer service.

Data Analysis Toolbox

So I am currently making my data analysis toolbox. This toolbox really helps me with my project because it makes me think of all of the aspects of it that I would need. The data analysis toolbox is basically questions about the who, what, when, where, and how of the data. The individuals (the whos) or the objects of my data are the customers that I serve. I will try to get as many customers as I could so I could get a more representative data sets. I hope that I could get around 300 to 350 customers. I already got about 100 customers already. The variables (the what) are how far does a person travels to downtown New Orleans. This variable is in miles. The data was gathered to find out how far does one travels to New Orleans. I want to present this data to the place in charge of Tourism. They could used this data to find out where they should advertise more about New Orleans in order to get more tourists in New Orleans. This data will be gathered from February 23 to March 21 on weekends and holidays(the when). It will be gathered at Cafe Du Monde (the where), a famous coffeestand in downtown New Orleans where there are lots of tourists. It will be gathered by me (the how) while I am waitressing. I will ask my customers where they are from. Since there is no available data for me to compare my results with, I will try to ask as many customers as possible. The data is from an observational study and it is only a sample data.

One particular problem with my data is its reliability. Even though I will have quite a large sample, my sample is not large enough compared to the amount of people that comes into New Orleans. There are thousands of customers that come into Cafe Du Monde every day. So I try to get as many people as possible and hope that my data will be representative enough. Also, my data is not yearlong. Different people come at different times. For example, when there is a big football game, there is a lot of people coming from the states of the football teams. So that there is one biased data. Also depending on what events going on, there are different people coming to each of the events. So I just hope that the data I gathered will not be too biased.

Experimental Design

Question: How far do tourists travels to New Orleans?

Objective: To find out about where most tourists come from.

Subjects: The customers at Cafe du Monde downtown. I will survey as many people as I could, especially during the Mardi Gras holidays.

Materials: Notepad

Laptop

Procedure: I will ask as many customers, hopefully more than 200 customers, where they come from. I will ask them if they knows how many miles is where they are from is from New Orleans. Then I will put it in Excel to graph it.

How far do people travel to New Orleans?

I choose this topic for my Statistics project because I think it would be interesting. I try to research up to about this topic, but I could not find any information on it. What I did find though was the number of visitors coming to New Orleans each year. I found it on a New Orleans Facts website. I spend some more time researching up my topic, but with no luck. I think my topic will be good for the Tourist Bureau because it will give them information about where did all of these visitors come from. So if there is not many visitors coming from, let say the Northwest of United States, then the Tourist Bureau could advertise about New Orleans there, in order to bring in more tourists for New Orleans. I also choose this topic because I think it would be easy for me, since I work in the French Quarter. I think it would be easy for me to ask people where they come from.