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

2. Why look at breakfast cereal?

3. Breakfast Cereal
Breakfast importance
Gas prices
Food
Children

4. Why measure cereal?

5. Measuring Cereal
Food competition
Generic brands
Cost efficiency

6. How does Ian measure pores on cereal?

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

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

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

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

12. Image Processing
Set scale
Measure width of cereal

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

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

15. What to do with all this tables of results?

16. 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
Cheerio 2
1252
0.909
Toasted Oat 1
1125
1.239
Toasted Oat 2
849
1.26
19-31% Cheerio surface is pore
46-56% Toasted Oat is pore
No correlation between Number of Pores and Area of Pores

17. What do I buy?

18. 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

19. 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

20. OVER-SOGGINESS!

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

22. Acknowledgements