Stats at the Movies

This article, written by Brendan Bettinger, shows Bettinger attempting to calculate a movie's gross income using a variety of variables. From his calculations, which utilized Minitab, Bettinger was able to approximate an equation for a movie's gross based on reviews, budget, number of theaters, if it is a sequel or not, and if it is PG-13. He got the equation Gross = –80 + 0.6×RT + 0.5×Budget + 0.025×Theaters + 50×Sequel + 20×PG13, which has a decent R2 value of .65 (65%). I think this is interesting because I would never have thought it would be possible to so arbitrarily pick out a movie's income. I also found it cool that he made a regression with multiple variables.

This article relates to our AP Stats class because as of now we are learning to create regressions for a set of data. This article begins by creating a linear regression based on movie reviews, then goes more in depth. A couple of new things I learned from this is about regressions using multiple variables, and binary variables.

To see how well this model works, I am going to test it on "The Dark Knight Rises".

RT: 87
Budget: $230,000,000
Theaters: 15,000
Sequel: 1 (yes)
PG-13: 1 (yes)

Gross= -80 + .6(87) + .5(230) + .025(15,000) + 50 + 20 = $532,200,000
Actual: $1,076,169,641

So, for the TDKR, this doesn't quite work. However this movie was wildly successful and popular, so it was likely an outlier.

 

Finally, I will attempt to predict the revenue for Skyfall using this equation. Since there are no reviews or theater numbers yet, I will predict using Quantum of Solace's values.

 

RT: 65

Budget: $130 million

Theaters: 3500

Sequel: 1

PG-13: 1

 

Gross= -80 + .6(65) + .5(130) + .025(3500) + 50 + 20 = 181.5

With this, I predict Skyfall will gross $181,500,000.

 

And that is the statistics of movies!





Pokémon: Gotta Catch All The Info

 

For my infographic, I decided to do Pokémon, as it is a series that is very near and dear to my heart. One of the pieces of data I collected was sales info of the main series games. This is fairly obvious as it shows how the series is doing. I left out spin-offs and "improved" (third versions of titles) as spin-offs not being representative of the main series and improved versions having misleadingly lower numbers due to people already having the first versions. Second was typing of Pokémon, because Type is a major factor in all aspects of the games and I thought it would be interesting to see the relative frequency of each one. Water and Normal ended up being surprisingly common compared to most of the types. Going deeper into type, my next chart was on the relative frequency of the top 4 types based on regions. Lastly I did usage, as there is always the lingering question of what the most popular Pokémon is. Based on usage statistics, it turns out that (at least competitively) Politoed is incredibly popular! Pokémon is awesome to research about because (no pun intended) it is an ever-evolving series. 

Deathmetal

Deathmetal wasn't always an antihero cyborg. He used to go under the name Vladmir, working as a soldier in Russia. One day, a horrible accident left Vladmir in critical condition and a loss of limbs. A mysterious scientist whisked Vlad away and performed the first experiments with his newfound technologies, making Vlad a living prototype of cyborg tech. Miraculously, the experiments succeeded, leaving Vladmir with newfound power, speed and abilities. There's trouble in paradise however, as Vlad is reliant on his technology to sustain his life and abilities.

Using his new powers, Vlad escapes from the scientist and ditches his identity in favor of the moniker Deathmetal. Deathmetal journeyed the Earth dealing out his own sense of justice (despite being labeled as cruel or even a villain by the public). Over time he masters and even upgrades his equipment.

The scientist was none to happy, nor the Russian government. Working for Russia, he uses one of their spies to counteract Deathmetal. Agent Abdulov, a top spy, was given much more enhanced and refined versions of Deathmetal's technology. In addition, he knows the ins and outs of Deathmetal's tech. Abdulov's sole mission: stop or destroy Deathmetal. The only way Deathmetal can face this greater force is to use his own brains and creative abilities to stop Abdulov.

The 5 W's (and also 1 H)!!!

If there is one thing I love, it is chocolate chip pancakes. If there are 7 things I love, they would be chocolate chip pancakes and the words "Who", "What", "When", "Where", "Why", and "How". You might be asking me "what" do these words mean? Or "why
" are you so annoying? Or even "how" are you allowed to have a blog? Come with me, and I'll take you on a journey into the world of these magical words and how they give us glorious, glorious context.

"Who" represents the cases of the data, the people or things that are having data recorded on them. An example would be if you surveyed all of Arkham Asylum on their least favorite Bat theme superhero, the villains in Arkham would be the "who".
"What" represents what the data is about. Referencing the previous example, the what would be the bat themed superhero. This would be considered categorical because it is a quality, not something measured or counted. There is also quantitative, which is counted or measured values.
"When" is the time the data was collected, such as today, last night, or tomorrow with a time machine.
"Where" is the location of collection, this could be outside a store, at the park, a prison, or even someone else's house!
"Why" represents the reason for collection. A reason why could be for fun, but usually there are better ones. For example if you were researching donkeys and collected data on donkey hair, the why would be to advance your research.
"How" sucks because it isn't a W.. Ok not really. How is simply... How the data was collected. This could be a survey or an experiment or any number of things!

And that's the story. Now you know.

Stats and Such

Once upon a time there was a magical class called Statistics. All math is magical of course, but Stats is a type of mathemagic that can be applied to everyday life (which can't be claimed by many areas of math for the average person). This makes Stats interesting on its own, however to add to it we also do cool activities to learn. There's nothing that can help someone learn statistics quite like being stranded in Northern Canada's sub -30 degree temperatures. If you didn't get the message, Stats is a pretty interesting and fun class so far. If I had to rate it I'd give it a 6/7 because nobody is perfect (Batman comes close). If you're wondering why I rated out of 7, then that's a story for another day.

PS: Stats can even relate to the foods you eat! I like to eat bunny shaped crackers (real bunnies not so much...).

The Dork Knight Rises

The first days of school have been filled love, war, fear, and most of all statistics. Well, maybe not love, war, or fear. We have done an activity over the past few days, one of life and death. On a trip to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus, our plane crashed leaving us stranded on what can only be described as the worst place on Earth: Canada. We now must salvage the remaining supplies and rank them in order of importance to survive.

My group, for better or for worse, was thrust into this situation. Would we survive? Based on an expert opinion, it is possible. We had an absolute value difference of 0 on the lighter and steel wool (items ranked 1 and 2 respectively). We also only had relatively small differences across the board. On average, our absolute value difference was 2.45. I would say that is pretty good for our survival chances.

Independent of my group, my results were not amazing. I once again achieved zero difference on the lighter (because I'm number 1). Past that my difference ranged from 2-5 save for the Crisco shortening with an absolute value difference of 7. The average of my absolute value differences was 3.36, which is okay but not great. Thankfully I am the grizzly hero of Gotham City, and should survive off my grit and instincts. Or maybe not, so it is good that this is only a theoretical situation. I don't like the cold.

Pictured:

Cole Hutzel's face if he were to be in Canada

Jack Howard, survival expert, doing math