[[wp:W. Edwards Deming|W Edwards Deming]] was an American statistician and management guru who used physical demonstrations to illuminate his teachings.  In one demonstration Deming repeatedly dropped marbles through a funnel at a target, marking where they landed, and observing the resulting pattern.  He applied a sequence of "rules" to try to improve performance.  In each case the experiment begins with the funnel positioned directly over the target.

* '''Rule 1''': The funnel remains directly above the target.
* '''Rule 2''': Adjust the funnel position by shifting the target to compensate after each drop.  E.g. If the last drop missed 1 cm east, move the funnel 1 cm to the west of its current position.
* '''Rule 3''': As rule 2, but first move the funnel back over the target, before making the adjustment.  E.g. If the funnel is 2 cm north, and the marble lands 3 cm north, move the funnel 3 cm south of the target.
* '''Rule 4''': The funnel is moved directly over the last place a marble landed.

Apply the four rules to the set of 50 pseudorandom displacements provided (e.g in the Racket solution) for the dxs and dys.  '''Output''': calculate the mean and standard-deviations of the resulting x and y values for each rule.  

Note that rules 2, 3, and 4 give successively worse results.  Trying to deterministically compensate for a random process is counter-productive, but -- according to Deming -- quite a popular pastime: see the Further Information, below for examples.

'''Stretch goal 1''': Generate fresh pseudorandom data.  The radial displacement of the drop from the funnel position is given by a Gaussian distribution (standard deviation is 1.0) and the angle of displacement is uniformly distributed.

'''Stretch goal 2''': Show scatter plots of all four results.


;Further information:
* Further [http://blog.newsystemsthinking.com/w-edwards-deming-and-the-funnel-experiment/ explanation and interpretation]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VogtYRc9dA Video demonstration] of the funnel experiment at the Mayo Clinic.

