Question

To create the flower gardens, Wendell bought six pieces of wood. Pieces A and B are 6 feet long, pieces C and D are 8 feet long, piece E is 3 feet long, and piece F is 2 feet long. Question: Describe how Wendell can use all six pieces of wood to create either two rectangular gardens or two triangular gardens. Assume the gardens do not share a common side.

Answer 1

2 triangular gardens with isosceles triangles 6,6,2 and 8,8,3

1) The way to tackle this question is to think of how many sides each figure has.

A rectangle: 4 sides

A triangle: 3

2) Since Wendell bought six pieces of wood, He can set two triangles. But note that a triangle has to fulfill an inequality, so:

`\begin{gathered} 6,6,3 \\ 6+6>3 \\ ------ \\ 8,8,2 \\ 8+3>2 \\ 8+2>3 \\ \end{gathered}`

3) Thus, Wendell can use those six pieces of wood to make 2 triangular gardens with isosceles triangles 6,6,2 and 8,8, 3