Dev. Project

Questions:

March 12, 2009 Probability
Suppose that, when you go home from school you like to take as great a varitey of routes as possible, and that you are equally likely to take any possible route. You will walk only east or south.

How many ways can you go from the school to home?
What is the probability that you will walk past the post office on your way home?

May 4, 2009
A ship needs to travel in the direction of 40'. The ship has a speed of 20 knots in still water. A current of six knots at 340' is pushing the ship. Determine the direction the ship is headed and the magnitude of the ship's resultant velocity.


Time Line:

May 25th: Rough Copy for Questions
May 29th: Rough Copy for Online Portion of Project
June 5th: Complete Project
June 7th: Hand in Project

Reflection

Personally I found the unit on Vectors to be somewhat confusing. I don't feel 100% confident in using the different naming methods such as Direction Angle Direction. I am okay with using the Angle Direction of Direction. Also at first I was not sure where to place the protractor when measuring out an angle from a word problem. I am okay with this now though. Overall I found this unit to be a little more confusing than the stat unit.

Reflection

I found the statistics unit to be easier than the probability unit.
I didn't have any problems with the calculator commands. Ideas such as
Z-scores and finding the area between certain ones and what that represents I
found to be easy as well. The last part of the unit concerning the binomcdf and
binompdf functions I found to be a bit confusing at first. Also the confidence
interval I found confusing in the beginning as well. I am not as comfortable in
using those functions but hopefully I will do well on the test. 

Introduction to Statistics

Today in class we started our Statistics unit. We started the class going over some ideas (found on the first couple slides) to start thinking about why and how statistics is used. Then we got into vocabulary. The terms are important and can be found on the 6th slide. There are also other notes following this and we also have a few homework questions. Mr. K stressed that this unit can be difficult and it is IMPORTANT to stop him and ask questions as soon as something is unclear. We spent a lot of time on Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion today.

Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median, and Mode:

Mean: The mean can be found by adding up all of the quantities given and dividing that sum by the number of quantities that were added. The equation for calculating the mean is:
Where "x bar" represents the mean,
"N" represents the total number of quantities (if you added five numbers together this N would equal 5,
X means the sum of all data
For ex. If you had the numbers 17 11 23 6 and 3.
To find the mean add up all the numbers:

17+11+23+6+3=60.
Next divide the sum (60) by the number of quantities that were added.
60/5
The answer would be: 12

Median: The median is the middle number in a given set of numbers. If the total number of numbers is even then the median is found by adding the two middle numbers and dividing by two. For example. If you had the numbers 17 11 23 6 and 3
The median would be found by first sorting the numbers from smallest to biggest
3 6 11 17 23
Next you would find the number in the middle:
11 If the set of numbers was 3 6 11 17 23 and 30
You would need to take the two middle numbers and add them then divide by two.
(11+17)/2
The answer would be 14.

Mode: The mode is the number that occurs most often in a set of data. When there are two numbers that show up an equal number of times it is termed Bimodal Distribution. *NOTE: When used in class distribution refers to "a bunch of data".
For example: If you had the numbers 8 14 14 20 and 24
The mean would be 14.
If the numbers were 8 14 14 20 20 24
The answer would be 14 and 24
Click here for practice problems

Measures of Dispersion: Range and Standard Deviation:

Range: The range is the difference between the smallest and largest values in a data set. The only values that matter when calculating the range are the highest and lowest numbers!
For example if you had the numbers: 5 10 15 20 and 25
Locate your highest number: 25
lowest number: 5
And subtract: 20
Standard Deviation: In standard deviation all the numbers in a data set 'matter'. It is a measure that shows how the data is dispersed in reference to the mean.
The symbol for Standard Deviation is

Calculator:
Mr. K also went over in class how to use our calculators for some of the calculations we will be learning this unit.

Next Scribe is Daniel

The Fundamental Principle of Counting

Overview of Today

We started off today's class taking a quick look at the blog and then discussed the Bento picture (The first Slide for today). We discussed different ways to arrange the three vegetables in the yellow dish (came to the conclusion it was six). After that we reviewed the homework for last night, and moved on to The Fundamental Principle of Counting.

The Fundamental Principle of Counting

The Fundamental Principle of Counting states: If there are M ways to do a first thing and N ways to do a second thing then there are M x N ways to do both things (found on slide 7).
For Example:
You need to run your weekly errands and need to make a stop at a mall, a grocery store and a hardware store. In your area there are two malls, three grocery stores and two hardware stores approximately the same distance from your house. How many different possible routes are there that include stopping at one of each store.

First pick out the given information:
2 Malls
3 Grocery Stores
2 Hardware stores

Then multiply:
2 Malls x 3 Grocery Stores x 2 Hardware Stores
=12 Different Routes

For more practice:
http://regentsprep.org/regents/Math/counting/praccnt.htm
This site contains simple questions and explanations.

Important Things to Know:

Today there was not a great number of people who completed their homework and Mr. K was not thrilled. He has implemented Homework Quizzes. Mr. K will be checking our homework from a past date so it is important that we date our work as well as label the questions properly. The quiz will just be to hand in the question when it is asked.

There are a couple homework questions at the end of the slides.

Tomorrows scribe will be Alvina :)