The document outlines an experimental design to test if the "5 second rule" is valid. Peanuts will be dropped on different floor surfaces (cement, hardwood, tile, carpet) for 5 seconds and then measured for bacteria levels before and after to see if bacteria increases significantly based on floor type. 1000 peanuts will be randomly assigned to treatments, and bacteria levels will be averaged within each treatment for comparison. The experiment aims to control for temperature and floor conditions to accurately measure the effect of floor type on bacteria transmission within 5 seconds.

1. Does the 5 Second Rule Work?
By: Andrew Wang and Aayush Patel

2. Subjects
● Pieces of food will be our subjects since they are the things that are getting
administered the treatment

3. Explanatory/Response Variables
● The surface the food is being dropped on is the explanatory variable since
it will cause different amounts of bacteria on the pieces of food. This is a
categorical variable
● The amount of bacteria is the response variable since the amount of
bacteria on a piece of food is caused by being on a certain surface for five
seconds. This is an quantitative variable.

4. Treatment
● The treatment given to the subjects, which are food, is the type of floor
they are dropped on. The subjects can either be dropped on a cement,
hardwood, tile, or carpet floor and there is an equal chance of receiving
each treatment.

5. Experimental Design
The experiment will start off with having 1,000 peanuts in a container. Each treatment
will receive 250 peanuts. The picking of the peanuts for each treatment will be
randomly picked from the container to reduce bias. Each individual peanut would then
be measured for the amount of bacteria present on the surface prior to the exposure of
the different surfaces (control). This would help make the comparison between the
amount of bacteria on the peanuts surface before and after being dropped on the floor
more accurate. It will focus on the change of the amount of bacteria on an individual
peanut’s surface. The experiment would be carried out in a controlled environment.
The temperature (about 70 degrees fahrenheit) would be consistent throughout and the
conditions of the different types of floors the peanuts are to be dropped on will be
consistent throughout as well.

6. Experimental Design Continued
After the peanuts are dropped on the various surfaces for 5 seconds, the amount of
bacteria on their surfaces are measure and are compared to their previous amounts of
bacteria. The amount of bacteria before the dropping would be subtracted from the
amount of bacteria after the dropping for an easy comparison. Then, those differences
would be averaged out within each treatment to see the effect of the different floor
types on the amount of bacteria present on the surface of a peanut. If the difference is
significantly large enough that it most likely couldn't have happened by chance, it can
be stated that the 5 second rule doesn’t work. Vis versa if the difference is small
enough.

7. Experimental Design Diagram
250 on Cement
1000 pieces of food
250 on Hardwood
250 on Tile
250 on Carpet
Amount of Bacteria on the food

8. Blocking/Blinding
● The 1,000 pieces of food will not be blocked into separate categories.
They will all be a generic type of dry food, and in this case, a peanut.
● The evaluators will also be blinded from knowing which treatment each
subject has been assigned. This will be done because certain individuals
may prefer certain types of floors over other, creating some bias.

9. Concerns
● Human accuracy would be a concern since the time the food would be on
the floor could simply exceed or fall under 5 seconds if the experimenter
is unable to react accurate enough to pick up the food in exactly 5
minutes. With this, the gloves the experimenter is wearing could
potentially have bacteria or remove bacteria from the food which is
another problem.
● Technological accuracy would be a concern since technology will be used
to count the amount of germs on a peanut before and after the treatment is
administered. Technology is more accurate than humans, but is not
perfect. This means that there will be a small amount of variability in
counting the amount of germs.