Area of Block Letter H which is 10'x10'x2.5'

Question

The sixth grade class at Hernandez School is building a giant wooden H for their school. 

The "H" will be 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide and the thickness of the block letter will be 2.5 feet.  How large will the H be if measured in square feet?

The truck that will be used to bring the wood from the lumberyard to the school can only hold a piece of wood that is 60 inches by 60 inches.  What pieces of wood (how many and which dimensions) will need to be bought to complete the project?

 

Answer 1

Hi Rhonda,

 

First off, it's important to be able to convert between inches and feet.  1 foot = 12 inches.  To go from inches to feet, you'd divide by 12, and to go from feet to inches, you'd do the opposite, multiply by 12.  So 60 inches = 5 feet, and 2.5 feet = 30 inches.

 

Next, note that the H-block is a 10 ft by 10 ft "square" (with a thickness of 2.5 ft, of course), but the truck can only hold squares that are 5 ft by 5 ft.  It looks like the truck would have to carry 4 of those 5 ft by 5 ft blocks.  (The total area of the H is 100 square feet, but the total area that the truck could carry, if it can only carry 5 ft by 5 ft squares, is 25 square feet.)

 

So the truck would be carrying 4 blocks with dimensions of 5 ft by 5 ft by 2.5 ft.

 

I hope this was helpful! :)

Answer 2

Hi Rhonda -- looks like 100 sq.ft. with two (2) "notch-outs" of 5' X 3.75' ...

 

subtract 37.5 sq.ft. leaving 62.5 sq.ft. ==> Buy two 60 by 60 (5'x5') to cut in half for l,l ...

 

Buy one 60 by 30 (5'x2.5') for the crossbar "-" ... total sq.ft. 50 plus 12.5 = 62.5 ... Best :)