Flora's New Garden Project POW*


(*Aka: Problems of the Week!)

Presented by Cory M. Wisnia, A MendoWorld Science Tech Guy
cwisnia@mcn.org
Mendocino Middle & High School, Mendocino CA 95460

http://www.mcn.org/ed/cur/cw/cwhome.html

The Problem

Flora designs gardens as a landscape architect. Flora did such a good job on the last garden, (see Flora's Garden--IMP2/Do Bees Build It Better?) that she has been commissioned to do another more unusually shaped garden that has triangular steps or terraces.

She has been given some measurements in a rather simple and incomplete sketch by the owner who lives in southern California about 600 miles away. There are to be walkways along the lines h1 to h4. She would like to find the measuements of the pathways on the edge of each triangle, since she will order paving stones for these, as well as the area of each individual triangle to be able to order turf. She would also like to know the total angle at point A---the angle of all of the triangles added up.

The lengths are in meters. Flora thinks there may be a pattern to the lengths of the walkways, and would like to know what this would look like if she was to make it continue until it was as close to 360¡ as possible, for another project she has in mind. She thinks it would be a rather pleasing design.

Can you help her out on this project? What would be the pattern if the distances were 3 meters or N meters, if there is one?

Please note: these are new problems and MAY have some bugs! If you tackle these problems, see if you can make improvements on them, and let the Wizard know by e-mail or snail mail. Tell how you arrived at your solution(s) so that others may follow your thinking, and include any graphs you may have as GIF files. If you wish to "snail mail" in graphs and solutions, here is the address:

The Wizard's Math Page
Mendocino High School
P O Box 226
Mendocino CA 95460

Please include permission to put your solution, or part of it, on the page if you wish to be acknowledged! Also include your school or city and state. BACK TO TOP

Do You Have NEW POWs or Enhancements or solutions? We will publish these for you! Mail them to cwisnia@mcn.org aka "The Wizard!"

back to Wizard's Math Page

back to Wizard's World

back to MMS home page

To The Mendocino Community Network Home Page