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🦋 Roof layout
Today I made practical use (for I think the first time in my life) of that most vital bit of mathematical knowledge (according to the folks that write the standardized tests), that a right triangle whose legs are 3N and 4N will have a hypotenuse of 5N. (Seriously, if you're planning to take the GRE soon make sure you know that -- about a quarter of the math questions reduce to it.) I was trying to figure out how long to cut the sticks for the edges of the roof of Sylvia's playhouse. Thinking I can use trigonometry but unsure about what angle it ought to be at -- I'm trying to mimic the garage which is nearby, it has a pretty steep roof but it does not look like a 45 degree slope... I was drawing different triangles on paper trying to get one that looked nice when it hit me -- the horizontal leg is 32" (which leaves a nice amount of eaves), if I make the peak of the roof be 24" above the eave then I have a nice 40" long hypotenuse. Cut everything up and a couple of hours later I had roofs. (They are currently lying on the lawn, waiting to be mounted -- this is a task which requires some pretty heavy lifting and I am getting my neighbor Frank to give me a hand with it on Wednesday Thursday.)
posted evening of Sunday, May 8th, 2005
➳ More posts about Sylvia's playhouse
➳ More posts about Home improvement
➳ More posts about Projects
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