Answer

14 candies 🎯

Solution

The original problem did not specify if the 5 pairs are of different flavors. Therefore, it does not matter if he gets 10 of the same flavor, since they are still 5 pairs of matching flavors.

If Hive account@chrisrice is very lucky, he will get 5 pairs of flavors in his 10th pick, so let's start from 10 picks. This is the best case scenario.

The least number of pairs he can get from 10 picks is 3, so let's start from 3 pairs after 10 picks. This is the worst case scenario. There will be 4 unmatched candies. The worst that could happen on the next (11th) pick will give 5 unmatched candies. The next (12th) pick will make a matching pair and leave 4 unmatched candies. After 2 more picks (14th), it is guaranteed that there will be a total of 5 matching pairs.

In general, the formula for the minimum required picks to guarantee a number of groups of something is best case plus number of different types minus 1. In this case, 10 + 5 - 1.

Winner: none 🤯

1 HIVE has been distributed equally to the winners of the previous days (February 1 to 6) of this Math mini-contest for D.Buzz. Hive account@holovision gets 0.5 HIVE, while Hive account@jfang003 and Hive account@appukuttan66 get 0.25 HIVE each. 💰