Friday, April 4, 2014

Driveway Math

 Well, what do you know, sidewalk chalk: it's not just for number lines anymore!

Klenda and I decided to take the Pre-Calculus/Trig on the road (or at least the driveway).
 We started out with drawing random right triangles, measuring them and working out the angles.

I'm not sure why math feels more "real" when you do it larger and on the ground, but it does.

We ended up trying to work out the heights of trees and houses with a protractor, our feet, and a calculator as a trig table.

It worked!  Kind of.  They were pretty rough estimates because we had a hard time getting accurate angles with just our eyes and the protractor.

But the principle worked, it was a lovely spring morning, and we had fun.

I wonder how much accurate surveying equipment would cost...


1 comment:

Queen of Carrots said...

My grandpa had a sextant and once taught us to use it to lay a fence line. Now I wonder what happened to that. Sounds like I should keep an eye out for it when going through stuff.