Guesstimate: (dur. 20 mins) I had Cricket in extra-curriculars, the guesstimate was about calculating the total volume of paint consumed for maintaining cricket stadiums across India.

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I started with stating assumptions about the components of a stadium which could need paint for maintenance namely: Right circular cylinder-shaped outer walls, seats, inside of the roof, steel structure, paint used for marking on the field.

I also stated that structures like washrooms, galleries and entrances are being ignored in mathematical calculation so a buffer amount will be added to the total later to reduce the error. Then I started by calculating the exposed surface area (area that requires paint) for a large size cricket stadium, used boundary length to derive the radius of outer walls after provisioning for seats between the boundary and outer walls. Calculated area for roof (assumed to be only above the seats) and structures.

Assumed a certain quantity of paint being used per square meter of surface (was asked to back this assumption and stated it as a fact of observation). I went on to calculate the paint requirement for smaller and medium sized stadiums by reducing the requirement of a large stadium by a suitable factor. Finally, I summed up the total paint requirement by adding up the requirement for different states according to popularity of cricket in them. States were clustered according to popularity of cricket in them : High, Medium and Low and a certain number of large, medium and small stadiums were assumed to be present in states of each category irrespective of the size of the state. All the assumptions and deviations from common logic were clearly communicated to the interviewer as I walked him through the guesstimate.

Total Paint Required for 1 stadium = (Surface Area that needs maintenance * Paint per square meter) + Volume to compensate for irregular shapes (galleries, washrooms, markings on field).

Guesstimate: (dur. 20 mins) I had Cricket in extra-curriculars, the guesstimate was about calculating the total volume of paint consumed for maintaining cricket stadiums across India.

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