Problem of the Week 4

Kaden Lloyd

UnderstandingIn this problem Maya and Jason are biking away from the same destination at
1:15pm but Maya is riding north and Jason is riding east. Maya is traveling at the
speed of 32 mph while Jason is traveling at the speed of 24 mph. The goal is to
determine at what time will Jason and Maya be 130 miles apart and how many miles
have they both traveled from the starting destination.

ProcessWhen I first read this problem I knew that the distance between Jason and Maya
would be a diagonal line. I then concluded that I would have to use the pythagorean
theorem to solve it. I first started by drawing two lines on graph paper. One line
went up 20 squares (Line 1) because Maya traveled north and the other line went
left (Line 2) 20 squares because Jason traveled east. The line going left and right
was perpendicular to the line going up which created a 90 degree angle. Each
square on the graph paper was equal to 4 miles. I chose to make each square 4
miles because 4 equally goes into both 32 and 24 which is the speed that Maya and
Jason traveled at. After that I labeled each square with a number. I started on 0 and
ended on 128 on both lines. After that I labeled 0 as 1:15 pm because that was the
time in which Maya and Jason both left. Then I labeled 32 on the line going up as
2:15pm and then I labeled 24 at 2:15pm also. I did this because once Maya traveled
32 miles it would have been and hour and once Jason had traveled 24 miles it would
have also been an hour since they both left at 1:15pm. After that I calculated how
far apart they were by drawing a diagonal line from 24 on line 2 and 32 on line 1.
This created a right triangle so I used the pythagorean theorem to find out how long
the diagonal was. I did this by solving 32^2+24^2=C^2. I then solved this equation
and got C=40. That means Jason and Maya were 40 miles apart at 2:15pm. After
that I went up 8 squares on line 1 until I got to 64 because Maya traveled another
32 miles. I did this for Jason also but I only went left 6 squares on line 2 because
Jason traveled 24 miles. At this point it was 3:15 and Maya had traveled 64 miles
and Jason had only traveled 48 miles. I then calculated the distance between the by
using the pythagorean theorem again. I solved for 64^2+48^2=C^2 and got C=80.
This meant that Jason and Maya were 80 miles apart at 3:15pm. I then ran out of
room on my graph but made a new one. This time the starting place on line 1 was
64 and the starting place on line 2 was 48 because this is where the last graph left
off. After this I went up 8 squares on line 1 again and left 6 squares on line 2. This
ended up leaving me at 96 on line 1 and 72 on line 2. I drew a diagonal line
connecting the two the solved using the pythagorean theorem again. I solved
96^2+72^2=C^2 and got C=120 miles. This meant that Maya and Jason were 120
miles apart at 4:15pm. I then noticed a pattern which was that Jason and Maya were

40 miles further away from each other each hour. I used this info to solve the next
hour without drawing a line. This meant that Jason and Maya were 160 miles apart
at 5:15pm because 120+40=160. I doubled checked this by doing the math which
was 128^2+96^2=C^2 and got C=160. This meant that Jason and Maya were 130
miles apart between 5:15pm and 4:15pm. I just needed to find out what time
exactly they were 130 miles apart and how far each of them had traveled at that
time. I guessed and checked a few times to try and figure it out and ended up
getting the right distances by making a 3rd graph. Each square in this graph
equalled 1 mile so that I could solve it with less difficulty. I will explain the answer in
the solution section of the POW.

SolutionWhen Maya had travelled 105 miles and Jason traveled 78 miles they were exactly
130 miles apart because 105^+78^2=C^2 is C=130. It took Jason and Maya 3.25(3
hours and 15 minutes) hours to travel that distance which means it was 4:30
because 1.15+3.15=4.3.

JustificationI have compared my answers with my peers answers and we had the same ones so
I am very positive that I have completed this POW correctly. Also, this POW was
definitly the hardest one and it took the most time to solve but I really enjoyed. It
was very easy to read and understand and I had fun making the graphs and solving
the distances between Maya and Jason. I really think we should have more POWs
like this one. Good job Aliza ;)