CLASS: A22F

GROUP MEMBERS : NURMAIZZATUL, AUNI FAIQAH, FARDEENA, HANNAH, IMRAN,

AMEER HAZIQ, FARHAN

IB MAA HL EXPLORATION

MODELLING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF M&M’s TO BE SHARED AMONG FOUR

PEOPLE
Title – Number of M&M’s in a packet

Problem statement

Being a regular maths enjoyer, many surrounding phenomena often interest me in an

analytical way, where maths could be used to describe them. One of these phenomena
caught my eye a few weeks ago, when my friends and I bought a M&M’s and we argued
about how many M&M’s are there in the packet for us to share equally. The question we
discussed was: How could we calculate the total number of M&M’s in a packet? Of course,
we can simply open and count the M&M’s one by one but what if there are 100 M&M’s in a
packet? Counting that would be inefficient because it would take a lot of time and the M&M’s
would be most probably unhygene. Therefore, we decided to take it to another level and
make our whole internal assessment about it, calculating the number of M&M’s in a packet,
based on one M&M’s measurement and observation.

Objectives

As mentioned in the introduction, our aim for this exploration is to find the total number of
M&M’s in a packet for us to share together equally. So, we aim to model a function that links
the volume of one of the M&M’s with the total weight that is stated on the packaging. By the
time this function can be utilised to determine the number of M&M’s in the packaging,
another function will be designed to estimate the total number of M&M’s that can be shared
equally among us, specifically for four people.

Scope

For our exploration, we are going to experiment to determine the number of M&M’s in a
packet. The materials that will be used are M&M’s, a vernier caliper, a ruler and a digital
weighing scale.

M&M’s vernier caliper ruler

digital weighing scale

Methodology
HL topic used

1. Volume of revolution (integration)

2. Radical function

Timeline progress activities

NO ITEM DATE

1. Briefing and Introduction 26 September 2022

2. Group Discussion 30 September 2022

3. Discuss IA’s Title 3 October 2022

4. Find suitable Items 4 October 2022

5. Discuss suitable maths application 6 October 2022

6. Finalise the IA 20 October 2022

7. Propose 26 October 2022

8. Make Video 26 - 27 October 2022

9. Submit complete IA 27 October 2022

References

Volume of Revolution - Mathematics A-Level Revision (n.d). Revision Maths Revision Maths
Retrieved May 1, 2021, from https://revisionmaths.com/advanced-level-maths-revision/pure-
maths/calculus/volumes-revolution

Ellipse formula, from https://www.cuemath.com/geometry/ellipse/