Recently in Math we finished up a mini math project on system of equations. System of Equations is a system of multiple equations with the same set of unknowns, when solving the equations your trying to find the unknown. These equations can be a linear or non linear equation. The project we were introduced to was trying to solve the question “How can we use system of equations to make a better choice?” We were tasked with finding and researching three phone plans and comparing the prices to find the best option for what plan you are looking for.
Before getting right into the project we did some practice to get the hang of how to solve a system of equations. The steps we took to solve the equations included first choosing one of the two equations (its better to choose the easier one out of the two). Then isolate one of the two variables, either x or y, finally substitute the expression from step 2 into the other equation and solve.
Once we learned a little bit more about what linear equations are and how to solve them, we went onto create our project. This was a partner project do we had to choose a partner that had a similar phone plan to us. I ended up working with Mimi which I was really happy about as I know we work well together and build off of each other’s ideas.
We started off the project by looking at the criteria of what we need to do, which is just shown below.
We decided that we were going to make up a hypothetical situation and phone plan problem which we could solve with system of equations. The phone plan we were looking for was a 5 GB plan that had a good overage rate as a Mum was buying these plans for their kids who go over their data usage a lot. The three phone companies we looked at were Rogers, Virgin and Telus. We did a lot of research on the different plans offered and found three different priced plans that were pretty similar with what you get.
Here is what each phone plan included:
Cellphone plan # 1- Virgin Mobile
70$ per month/ one phone
10 GB (5$ per 250 megabytes went over)
120 minuted canada wide ($5 per 15 over)
Unlimited on evening and weekends from 5pm- 7am Unlimited worldwide text from canada
Unlimited picture and messaging from Canada to US
US travel plan:
Extra $40 dollars a month
200 minutes of calling within the US Unlimited messaging
200 mb of data
International travel plan: Extra $60 dollars a month 100 minutes of call
200 test messages
250 mb of data
Cellphone plan # 2- Telus
115$ per month/ one phone
10 GB (10$ per 200 megabytes went over)
120 minuets (every 30 minutes gone over is $5) Unlimited text and pic message in Canada
Rome like home plan (USA):
$7 dollars a day
Call and text within Canada and US (same amount as you can with your regular plan) Full use of data in monthly plan
Rome like home plan (International)
$12 dollars a day
Call and text within The location your visiting Full use of the data in monthly plan
Cellphone plan # 3- Rogers
140 $ month
10 GB (5$ per 100 megabytes went over) Unlimited calling across Canada and US Unlimited messaging for text, pic + video
Rome like home plan (USA):
$7 dollars a day
Call and text within Canada and US (same amount as you can with your regular plan) Full use of data in monthly plan
Rome like home plan (International)
$12 dollars a day
Call and text within The location your visiting Full use of the data in monthly plan
we then created a graph to show how much each phone what would cost after an amount of extra data usage. This is the chart:
after creating the graph, we then used system of equations to create an equation to the graphs. There were two points of intersection one with Telus and Virgin and the other with Rogers and Virgin. This is how We found the equation for the point of intersection:
Virgin and Rogers Comparison
Telus and Virgin Comparison
we then created a Keynote to bring our entire project together and show it to the class. This is the keynote we created:
overall this project was very useful and I definitely think will help me in late pr life when trying to compare prices of different providers especially when I want to pay for a more expensive phone plan. I definitely think this project work on my team work skill, communication skills and my understanding of this math unit.