How Much is Inside a Flat Rate Box?

Alright, here is the deal.

I think I've figured out the correct answer to a US Postal Service contest. Top prize is $10,000.
Here is the thing, I want you to enter, and I want a cut of the winnings.

The challenge is simple: Calculate or test how many Hershey's Kisses will fit into one of their USPS flat-rate mailer boxes. This is a lot like the "How many 76 balls in the Trailblazer" contest, with two differences: 1) The volume of the box is easier to calculate than the volume of the Trailblazer, and 2) The volume of a foil-covered Hershey's kiss is harder to calculate than the volume of a 76 ball.

Frankly, it wouldn't be that tough to just buy the 21 bags of Hershey's kisses and try it out myself. Unfortunately, I'm trying to conserve money right now, so I'm not going to do it that way. Instead, I'll measure how many kisses fit inside a smaller box, then extrapolate an answer for the entire flat-rate postal box.

Now, here is the interesting part: For the next two days, I'll only tell you my answer if you promise me a cut of your winnings.

I'd love to win this contest, and having a cockeyed.com reader win would be almost as good!

So, here is the set up.
I bought two bags of kisses at Target. On Monday, I swung by the post office and picked up a couple of the genuine flat-rate postal boxes.

Now, measuring the volume of one Hershey's kiss is almost pointless, because the real question here is "how much space does one kiss command"?, taking into account that the kisses will settle with a little bit of empty space left in between.

I will refer to these different volumes as "actual kiss volume" and "trapped air volume".

When regular balls are dumped together in a box, for example, an incredible 53% of the space is taken up by "trapped air volume" in between the balls.

Box-shaped candy would pack the most efficiently, and these deflated cone kiss shapes, they will fall somewhere in between.

Next, I filled a very small box with Hershey's kisses, to see how they would interact.

I'd really like you to finish reading this article, and for you to use that information to help you win this contest... but oh! It will cost you! For the promise of a 10% cut of your winnings, ($1,000) I'll share the rest of the information.

This contest ends Thursday night, at midnight, so please, if you plan on entering the contest and NOT splitting the loot with me, please wait until then to read the rest of my experiment. There are very good calculations that follow this page, with some very telling photos and calculations.

To enter the contest without my calculations, go to http://www.usps.com/lovestamp/welcome.htm

Otherwise, please click below, and we'll do some business!

February 14th, 2007.

Photographic Height/Weight Chart

The Weight of Clothing