Problem statement
In this problem we had a barn that was 10X10 feet and a cow that was on a rope that was 100 ft long. We had to figure out how much land the cow can graze on. In the picture above that is the diagram that the class figured out was correct.
Process
My initial steps that I took to try to solve this was draw out how the rope would go if it hit the corners of the barn and go around the whole thing. But I then realized that the cow can go either way of the barn and would probably use both ways so that it can graze. Knowing that information we came up with the diagram above. We realized that it wouldn't be a perfect circle and that it would have some sort of dimple where the cow stops on both sides of the diagram.From then I really had no Idea how we could solve this problem or how to even get started with it, and that is when we went back to get refreshers on things that we have learned in the years before such as Trigonometry and the pythagorean theorem.
Process
My initial steps that I took to try to solve this was draw out how the rope would go if it hit the corners of the barn and go around the whole thing. But I then realized that the cow can go either way of the barn and would probably use both ways so that it can graze. Knowing that information we came up with the diagram above. We realized that it wouldn't be a perfect circle and that it would have some sort of dimple where the cow stops on both sides of the diagram.From then I really had no Idea how we could solve this problem or how to even get started with it, and that is when we went back to get refreshers on things that we have learned in the years before such as Trigonometry and the pythagorean theorem.
Solution
Evaluation/Reflection
I really enjoyed this problem because it had so many different parts to it that you had to understand to understand the whole problem. Once we realized how many parts there were we went through and learned all of the things that we needed to solve that certain part of the problem. Some things were refreshers(trigonometry and the pythagorean theorem) and some things were things that I learned as we went(Inverse Trigonometry). I think that the group quiz only did a little bit for me. I knew how to solve the problem by myself but I feel like I had to go slower and wait for my groupmates to write down what we discussed. I feel like if my whole group new how to do it by themselves I would get more out of it instead of basically teaching them how to do it during the test. I think that I deserve an a because I knew most of the things that were going on in and class and tried to help my groupmates understand what was going on as much as possible.