ANALYZING THE PORES ON CEREAL TO DETERMINE THE COST EFFICIENCY OF GENERIC BRANDS Ian Dohm: ian_dohm@caryacademy.org Cary Academy SummerVentures in Science and Math at ASU 2008 Dr Tashakori and Jere Miles

Why look at breakfast cereal?

Breakfast Cereal Breakfast importance Gas prices Food Children

Why measure cereal?

Measuring Cereal Food competition Generic brands Cost efficiency

How does Ian measure pores on cereal?

Preprocessing “Purchased” General Mills Cheerios Found generic equivalent of Cheerios...TOASTED OATS (HY-TOP)

Preprocessing Surface colored with yellow highlighter Lead inserted to mark the right side of “O” Pictures taken with normal camera

Preprocessing Four pictures taken of each “O” Microscope camera ProScope HR

Image Processing Backgrounds removed Black and White Image Reds, Cyans, Blues, Magentas Greens and Yellows

Image Processing Set scale Measure width of cereal

Image Processing Threshold darks NOT Black (0) ImageJ (image processor)

Image Processing Analyze thresholded particles Use measurements earlier processed as scale Find area Get results

What to do with all this tables of results?

Results 19-31% Cheerio surface is pore 46-56% Toasted Oat is pore Total Number of Pores Total Area (cm^2) Area of Pores (cm^2) Est. Percent Pore (%) Cheerio 1 799 1.106 0.2048696910227 18.5234802009674 Cheerio 2 1252 0.909 0.2799993275951 30.8030063360946 Toasted Oat 1 1125 1.239 0.571231146352299 46.1042087451412 Toasted Oat 2 849 1.26 0.709355630968701 56.2980659498969 19-31% Cheerio surface is pore 46-56% Toasted Oat is pore No correlation between Number of Pores and Area of Pores

What do I buy?

Conclusion One last factor............... General Mills Cheerios Less pore area on surface More material but more expensive Box Name/Advertisement HY-TOP Toasted Oats More pore area on surface Less material but cheaper Bag No rep One last factor...............

General Mills Cheerios Conclusion General Mills Cheerios HY-TOP Toasted Oats Less pore area More material More expensive Box Name/Advertisement More pore area Less material Cheaper Bag No rep

OVER-SOGGINESS!

Over-sogginess More pores Milk Premature softening Leads to Old People

Acknowledgements