Orchard Unit Problem

By Zoe Ramsey

● Problem Statement:
○ You are given a circle with a radius of 500 feet, within the circle
on a grid there are smaller circles that have a circumference of
2.5 inches and grows by 1.5 inches every year that passes. There
is one way to see out of the circle through point (25,½), but how
long would it take for you to be completely enclosed in the
center of the circle?
● Process:
○ Step 1:
■ Find what you know and find the formula you are going to
use for the entire problem.
■ final area=(# of years)*(rate of change)+initial area
■ I found the rate of change which was given to me in the
problem and calculated the initial area
● I calculated the initial area by taking the initial
radius and using the circle formula to turn it into
area.
■ FA=(# of years)*1.5+0.49
○ Step 2:
■ The next step was to find the final area of how big the
trees need to grow. For this I had to do a little bit of
trigonometry and use SOH CAH TOA.
■ There were two different triangles I had to find the
dimensions of. I had to start with the bigger triangle that
was helping us find our radius of how big they will grow.
To do this I took the dimensions that I knew, which were ½
by 25 with a 90 ° angle. That's all I knew.
■ So I had to use the inverse of tan, tan-1(½ /25)=x. I solved
it, x=1.14.
○ Step 3:
■ Then I had to find the dimension of the smaller triangle
within it. I knew one side length and one angle so I had to
use SIN.
■ sin(x)=1.14/1 Which was 0.019 in units. I had to convert it to
feet then inches. It was 2.28 inches.
○ Step 4:
■ Next I had to turn the radius into an area. I did this by
using the formula for a circle.
■ 3.14(2.28)^2=16.3
■ So the final area of the smaller circle that grows in order
for it to be completely enclosed is 16.3.
 ○ Step 5:
■ The final step is putting all of our pieces together into an
equation.
■ final area=(# of years)*(rate of change)+initial area
■ 16.3=1.5*y+0.495
■ Then I solved it for a total of 10.53 years until it was
completely enclosed.
● Work:
● Solution:
○ final area=(# of years)*(rate of change)+initial area
○ 16.3=1.5*# of years+0.495
○ It would take 10.53 years for the center point to be completely
enclosed.
● Evaluation:
○ Overall I would give this unit and unit problem a 7/10. I liked the
concept of us getting a big problem, then throughout the
semester learning the different pieces that it takes to solve it. It
was easy to wrap my head around and didn't make it seem too
overwhelming. Having this that took us through how to solve it
made everything manageable. Although I think that we could
have found a better way then a POW style write up to present
our learning. Potentially by physically representing our findings
or teaching how to do this to another class.