Flag Pole Estimation Project
Kristen Rabalais, David Sharp, and Aaron Schexnayder
Sketch
AA Similarity
AA similarity can be used in this project because there's two pairs of angles in one triangle congruent to two pairs of angles in the other triangle, which made the triangles similar. One pair of angles is the of 90° angle created by the flagpole and ground and the 90° angle created by the person and ground. The second pair of angles is the reflecting angles caused by the mirror. These two pairs of triangles create two triangles that you can use to indirectly find the measure of the flagpole.
Proportion
Pencil/Person Technique
The height of the flagpole is estimated by using the pencil/person technique. One person uses a pencil to measure the length of the person standing directly next to the flagpole. The height of the person standing next to the flagpole was multiplied by the number of pencils lengths it took to reach the top of the flagpole. Our group's estimated height using the pencil/person technique was 35 feet.
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwk8T3qdQPo