Lydia Blaisdell

POW 3: Planning the Platforms

Problem Statement:

In this POW, you are taking the place of Camillas assistant, and you need to know what
decisions Kevin has made (you come up with these yourself), and from there create a formula
that will give the height of each platform, and a formula that will give you the length of material
the Camilla will need for the platforms.

Visual
Representation:

Process:

My first step when beginning this POW, was drawing out the platforms with their different
heights, and coming up with the basic idea of what an equation would look like to find the
heights of each platform. One of my first thoughts was that since we were working with
consecutive numbers, sigma might be a key part of my equation. As I started working with
sigma, I realized that I didnt have enough of an understanding of the concept to use it, so I
moved on to different equation ideas. I begin to label each key piece of information with a
variable to make my equations easier to follow. They went like this -
Shortest Platform: s
Tallest Platform: h
Difference Between Platforms: y
Amount of Platforms (-1): x Commented [1]: What does -1 represent?
Amount of Necessary Fabric: b
Width: a
I wasnt sure which of these variables I would be using, but they seemed like they all played a
part in the problem. After lots of guess and checking, and help for peers, I came to final
equation that would help me identify how tall each platform was. From there I started all over
again when trying to find the second equation. I went back to the idea of consecutive numbers,
but really struggled with locking down an equation that would work for any situation with all the
guess and check work I was doing. Eventually I came up with an equation that worked, but I
wasnt very happy with it do to the fact that it was really complex, and kind of hard to follow.

Solution:

Equation to find height of platform: s*3y=h

Equation to find length of material needed: as=(s+y)+(s+2y)+(s+3y)
I only had 3 platforms, so I only needed to go up to three, but if you had 4 platforms youd go up
to 4, and so on if there were even more platforms. Commented [2]: What if we had n amount of
platforms, a number we know is there but we're unsure
of what it is.
Evaluation:

This is by far the hardest POW that Ive done so far out of the three that weve had. For some
reason the way this problem was worded was very difficult for me to understand, and I had a
hard time understanding exactly how to start to find a solution. Although I had challenges with
this POW, I think the critical thinking skills were very valuable. Working through this problem
forced me to think about math in different ways than I normally do. Drawing out pictures and
guessing and checking were majorly utilized while I was doing this POW.

Self Assessment: I think that overall I deserve an A- on this POW. I put a lot of effort into it,
and although Im not quite sure if my answer is correct, I worked through the logic, and my
solution makes sense to me. I got a lot of help from my peers for this assignment, which I think
is definitely import with harder problems like these.