A WALK TO LUNCH
Created by
Kym Island and Ashley Sweeney
One day Leroy the wiener-dog was on his way to the Eagle’s Nest to have some lunch. Today they were having hotdogs and those are Leroy’s favorite so he was in a hurry. As he trounced along he noticed the wonderful flags flowing in the wind. All of a sudden the wheels in his head started to churn. Leroy wondered what the border of the smaller flags would be if he laid one of them on top of the largest (American) flag. He stood there a minute and pondered this eerie idea. When all of a sudden it hit him like a speeding train, the first step to solving this problem would be to figure out the measurements of the flags. First of all, Leroy obtained an encyclopedia and looked up flags. There it told him that the American flag was 4.6ft by 2.3ft. It also told him that the regular Montana flag and the two FVCC flags are 3ft by 1.6ft. So now that he knows the lengths and widths he multiplied each of the numbers (L*W) for each flag to find the area. The area for the American is 10.58 ft^2, and the area for the FVCC and the Montana flags is 4.8 ft^2.
(3+2x)(1.6+2x)=10.58
FVCC FLAG (L*W)
Leroy, being the mathematical whiz that he is, knew that the Quadratic Formula would work best for this problem so he plugged the numbers in and voila the answer!
HERE IS THE EQUATION WE ARE TRYING TO SOLVE:Length
Width
(3 + 2X) (1.6 + 2X) = 10.58
F
O
I
L
4.8 +
6X
+ 3.2X
+ 4X^2 =
10.58
4.8
+ 9.2X + 4X^2 = 10.58
-10.58
-10.58
-5.78 + 9.2X + 4X^2 = 0
4X^2
+ 9.2X
-5.78 = 0
a
b
c
Now we are going to use the QUADRATIC FORMULA.
- b + 
(b^2
– 4ac)
______________
Now fill in variables with these # ‘ s:
-
9.2 +
(9.2^2
– 4(4)(-5.78))
_______________________
X = .514 X = -2.814 We can’t have negative measurements.
.514 ft. = 6 in.
Plug into original problem.
(3 + 2(.514)) (1.6 + 2(.514)) = 10.585584 ft. ^2
There is a six-inch border around the FVCC flag when laid on top of the American flag.