Tower Project

Michael McMain
May 30th, 2013
Macomb Math Science and Technology Center
Mr. Acre

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Part One: Introduction

Hello maam, this is regarding the tower you hired me to build. Now to
specify and make sure we are both on the same page, you want it to be sixteen sides,
and have a plot size of 36x36. Also you want it to look like you are walking on water?
Kind of strange, but you are the boss. If you do not already know the city has a
requirement that all the buildings need to have three feet from the edge of the plot to the
beginning of your building. Assuming this is all correct, here is the entirety of the math
regarding the dimensions of the tower, the volume, the surface area, and etcetera.
Part Two: 16 Sided Polygon Maximized the Plot Size
Because the original plot size is 36x36 feet and including the zoning laws being
there needs to be three feet on every side, the area of land that I will be allowed to build
on is 30x30 feet. Now you want the central angle of the four 16 sided polygons, polygon
one being the start of footing, polygon two the start of wall, polygon three the end of
wall, and polygon four end of footing, and the areas of each polygon. Also you want the
16 sided tower to be maximized to the plot size.

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Figure 1. Tower Base

Figure 1 above shows the tower and the dimensions that were given. You can see that
the maroon square represents the entire plot size of 36x36 feet, and the black square
represents the area that can be built on, being 30x30 feet. The green line shows the
distance from the center of the polygon to the edge of the plot, which is 15 feet. And the
yellow line shows the distance between all of the polygons, which is one foot, making it
three feet in all.
360
=Central Angle
To find the central angle of a polygon, you use the equation N
where 360 represents the degrees in a circle and N is the number of sides. So if you
plug in 16 for N you come up with 22.5 as the central angle. Since we now know the

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central angle, we can use the rule of tangent to find the height of one of the triangles,
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Polygon One

Shown above is polygon one. Polygon one is the sixteen sided polygon that is
highlighted in blue. To find the area of polygon one and all of the other polygons you will
need to make a triangle out of the center of the polygons, and a side of all of the
polygons, shown in Figure 3. Polygon one is the start of the footing.

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Figure 3. Triangle In the Polygon

Figure 3 above shows the triangle that will be used the find the area of all of the
polygons. Each line that makes the base of the triangle represents one of the sides of
each polygon. The entire line that goes through the middle of each polygon side is 15
feet, can be seen in Figure One, and goes down by a foot every time. We also know the
entire angle measure is 22.5, and when divided by two, to account for the altitude
being dropped, is 11.25 we will need this information to find x, the length of the sides
for polygon one.

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1
x=tan ( 11.25 ) 15
2
x=2 ( tan ( 11.25 ) 15 )
x 5.97

1
Area=16 ( xh)
2
Area=16

( 12 x 15)

Area=16

( 12 5.97 15)

Area 716.08 Feet

Figure 4. Work For Area of Polygon 1

Figure 4 above shows the work to find the length of one side of polygon one and to find
the entire area of the polygon. The reason I used tangent to find x is because we know
the angle and the adjacent side length and I needed to find the opposite side length, so

the only thing I could use is tangent, which is

tan ( ) =

O
A

where theta is the angle

measure, O is the opposite side length, and A is adjacent side length. If you have any of
the two you can solve for the variable, which is what I did to find the opposite side
length. Once the opposite side length was found it had to be multiplied by two, since the
right triangle is only half of the entire triangle, I used the regular area formula for a

triangle,

1
bh
, and multiplied it by sixteen since there are sixteen of those triangles in
2

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the entire polygon. The number found after all of that was approximately 716.08 feet
squared.

Figure 5. Polygon Two

Figure 5 above shows polygon two, the polygon highlighted in blue. Because it is one
foot closer to the center, the triangles height, as seen in Figure 3, is only 14 feet, not
15. Polygon two is where the wall starts.

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1
x=tan ( 11.25 ) 14
2
x=2 ( tan ( 11.25 ) 14 )
x 5.57

1
Area=16 ( xh)
2
Area=16

( 12 x 14)

Area=16

( 12 5.57 14)

Area 623.79 Feet 2

Figure 6. Work For Area Of Polygon Two
Figure 4 above shows the work to find the length of one side of polygon two and to find
the entire area of the polygon. Basically doing the exact process as Figure 4, but using

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14 as the height. In the end coming up with approximately 623.79 feet squared.

Figure 7. Polygon Three

Figure 7 above shows polygon three, the polygon highlighted in blue. Like in polygon
two, the height is one foot shorter, so in this case it is 13 feet. Polygon three is where

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the wall ends.

1
x=tan ( 11.25 ) 13
2
x=2 ( tan ( 11.25 ) 13 )
x 5.17

1
Area=16 ( xh)
2
Area=16

( 12 x 13)

Area=16

( 12 5.17 13)

Area 537.86 Feet

Figure 8. Work For Area Of Polygon Three

Figure 8 above shows how to find the base of polygon three and the area. It is
essentially the same process as the other areas, but the height is 13, not 14 or 15.

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Figure 9. Polygon Four

Figure 9 above shows polygon four, which is outlined in blue. The height of the polygon
is now 12, instead of 13, 14, or 15, because of the one foot difference.

1
x=tan ( 11.25 ) 12
2
x=2 ( tan ( 11.25 ) 12 )
x 4.77

1
Area=16 ( xh)
2
Area=16

( 12 x 12)

Area=16

( 12 4.77 12)

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Area 458.29 Feet

Figure 10. Work For Area of Polygon Four

Figure 10 above shows how to find the length of the base and the area of polygon four.
This is, again, basically the same process as Figure 4, 6, and 8, but the height is 12
instead of 13, 14, or 15.

Part 3: Volume of the Concrete Needed for the Footing, the Plexiglas
Needed for the Floor, and the Water Needed for the Aquarium.
The next thing needed is to fill the footing with concrete, which as we learned in
Figure 1, is three feet thick. The footing must be 3.5 feet deep, or underground. Without
the cement, there is no way for the tower to be built because there would be no footing.
Also the complete area of polygon four underground, will be hollow, so it will not be filled
with cement. I need to do a cost analysis of the cement, which is $115 per cubic yard.
To find the volume of the footing I will need to subtract the volume of polygon four from
the volume of polygon one.

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Figure 11. Footing

Figure 11 above shows the footing of the tower. From the edge of polygon one to the
edge of polygon four is the footing, and you can see that the footing goes underground,
and it goes under 3.5 feet deep.
To find the volume of polygon one all I need to do is area of the base times the
height, and we already found the area of polygon one under Figure 4, and just multiply
that by 3.5, which is the distance down the footing goes.
Volume=A b h
Volume=716.08 3.5

Volume 2506.3 Feet 3

Figure 12. Work For Volume of Polygon 1
Figure 12 above shows the work to find the volume of polygon one. It is just the volume
formula, area of the base times the height, where the height is 3.5 and the area of the
base is 716.08 because that is what was found in Figure 4.

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Volume=A b h
Volume=458.29 3.5
Volume 1604.03 Feet 3
Figure 13. Work to Find the Volume of Polygon Four
Figure 13 above shows the work to find the volume of polygon four. It is basically the
same thing as Figure 12, but the area of the base is 458.29 instead of 716.08.
Volume of Footing=V Polygon 1 V Polygon 4
Volume of Footing=2506.31604.03

Volume of Footing 902.27 Feet

Figure 14. Work to Find Volume of Footing

To find the volume of the footing you take the volume of polygon one minus the volume
of polygon four. After I did that I got approximately 902.27 feet cubed. Because we need
this number in yards, since the concrete company does it at $115 per cubic yard. So
902.27 divided by three is approximately 300.76. So in yards, the volume is 300.76
yards cubed. To find how much it is going to cost, we multiply the amount of cubic yards
by how much it is, so 300.76 times 115 is $34,586.88 is how much the cement is going
to cost.

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Figure 15. Flooring

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Figure 15 above shows the flooring. It is said that I need to have a four inch floor made
out of Plexiglas that will extend to polygon four.

Figure 16. Aquarium

Figure 16 above shows the area where the Plexiglas will be placed on top of. Both of
the figures are based off of polygon four. The company that is selling the Plexiglas says
that it is $1100 per 48 inch x 96 inch x 4 inch in sheet. A Plexiglas floor is needed
because you want to be able to look down and see an aquarium full of fish.

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In order to find how much the Plexiglas will cost I need to figure out the volume of
Figure 15. We know that the height is 4 inches, which can be represented 4/12, and the
area of the base is approximately 458.29 square feet, so when I multiply them together I
get approximately 152.77 cubic feet. In order to see how much the Plexiglas will cost, I
will need to compare the area of the Plexiglas and the area of the floor. The area of the
floor in inches is approximately 5499.53 inches squared and the area of the Plexiglas is
4608 inches squared. So because 5499.53 divided by 4608 is approximately 1.19, I
know that it is going to take more than one sheet, but less than two to cover the floor in
Plexiglas, and because you cannot buy .19 of the Plexiglas you will need to buy two
sheets, which will cost $2200.
The last thing you wanted me to do is find the volume of water you will need to
get in order for the aquarium to be 75% full. The volume of polygon four can be seen in
Figure 14. In order to do this I will have to multiply the volume of polygon four, where all
of the water will be located, and multiply it by , to represent it being 75% filled. So the

volume formula would be,

V =1604.03

3
4 , having the end volume of the water be

1203.02 cubic feet.

Part Four: One Lateral Face of the Outer Prism Base
The part that is needed to be found here is basically the lateral surface area
including the 5x3 door, and the half window on top of it, and the two sides with full
windows. In order to find the surface area for 13 out of the 16 sides, that have no
windows or doors on it, I just have to multiply the base times the height, and the height

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is two times the base. Because this is all dealing with the outer wall, everything is
related to polygon two.

5.57 Feet

Figure 17. Polygon Two With Side Length

Shown above in Figure 17 is polygon two, the highlighted polygon, that is the outer wall,
and it is labeled to show how much one side of the polygon is.

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Figure 18. One Outside Face With Door and Half Window
Figure 18, shown above, shows the door that has the dimensions 3x5 with the half
window on top of it. To find the lateral surface area of this I have to find the surface area
of the entire rectangle, than subtract the area of the door and window. We know the
length of the base is approximately 5.57 feet, and the height is approximately 11.14 feet.
When those are multiplied together the surface area of the entire rectangle is
approximately 62.04, and now I need to find the surface area of the door and the
window on the top. In the end, the building will only have one of these faces.
To find the surface area of the door I just multiply the length, 3, times the height,
5, and when I do that I get 15. Now to find the area of the half window will be tricky. I
can set it up like Figure 3 again, on a smaller scale, where instead of 15 as the height,

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plug in three. This is to find the base. The central angle will stay the same, 22.5, so I

will just use tangent again, setting it up like

1
x=tan ( 11.25 ) 1.5
, in the end getting
2

approximately 0.6 for the length of one side. Then to find the entire surface area, I am
going to find the surface area as if it were full, than divide it by two. The equation being,

A=

( ( ))

1
1
16 bh
2
2

, then plugging in the numbers,

A=

( (

1
1
16 0.6 1.5
2
2

))

, in the end,

getting the area to be approximately 3.58. So the area of the door plus the area of the
window on top of it is approximately 18.58 feet squared.

Figure 19. Area of Rectangle Minus the Window

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Figure 19, shown above, shows the complete window on one of the walls. In the end,
the actual building will have two of these faces.
To find the surface area of this you subtract the area of the window from the area

of the rectangle. Under Figure 18 I found the area by using the formula

A=16

( 12 bh)

where b is 0.6 and h is 1.5, simplifying the equation I got the area of one window to be
approximately 7.16 feet squared.

To find the lateral surface area I used the equation,

where

AR

A
( R 16)(A W 2+ A D )
,
LSA=

represents the area of the rectangle, this is multiplied by 13 because there

are 13 sides like this on the building.

AW

represents area of the. And

AD

represents the area of the door. After being plugged in the equation becomes this,
LSA=( 62.04 16 )(14.32+18.58) , the end result being approximately 959.73 feet

squared, for the entire lateral surface area of the outer wall.
Part Five: Volume of the Inner Base Prism
The next thing to do is to basically find the volume of the inner base. Because
this is the inside of the tower, everything will be associated with polygon three. Also the
wall, or the distance from polygon two to polygon three is one foot thick.

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5.17 Feet

Figure 20. Polygon Three

Figure 20, above, shows which polygon is polygon three and give the approximate side
length. In order to find the volume of the inner prism I need to know two things, the area
of the base and the height.

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Figure 21. Inner Base Lateral Face

We found the area of the base in Figure 8, 537.86 square feet, and the height was given
that it is two times the side length of polygon two, so basically approximately 11.14 feet.
V = A B h

where

AB

is the area of the base and

numbers are plugged in, it will look like this,

h is the height. Once all of the

V =537.86 11.14 , and the end result is

approximately 5991.26 feet cubed for the volume of the inner prism.
Part Six: Pyramid Top of the Outer Pyramid showing the Height of the Outer
Pyramid and Slant Height of One Lateral Face of the Outer Pyramid.
Next thing on the list is to find the height of the outer pyramid, the slant height of
the outer pyramid, and find the angle measure between the prism base and the pyramid
face found at the foot of the slant height. Because everything in this part is on the outer
pyramid, polygon two will be used. It is required that the height of the pyramid is three

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times the length of one side of polygon two. Because one side length of polygon two is
approximately 5.57 feet, you would multiply that by three to get approximately 16.71 feet
for the height of the pyramid.

Figure 22. Pyramid Top

Figure 22, above, shows the top of the tower. In this model, only one side of the pyramid
is drawn. We know the height of the pyramid is approximately 16.71 feet and the
distance from the center of the polygon to the point is 14 feet.
a2 +b 2=c 2
2

14 +16.71 =c

475.18=c
c 21.8 Feet
Figure 23. Work To Find the Slant Height
Figure 23 shows how I got the slant height. I got the slant height by using the
Pythagorean Theorem. Because I know the base and the height of the triangle, all I had

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to do was use the Theorem to find the hypotenuse. My final answer for the slant height
is approximately 21.8 feet.
The last thing I need to do in this part is to find the angle measure between the
prism base and the pyramid face found at the foot of the slant height. To do that it is
relatively simple. Because I can make a right triangle out of the distance from the center
of the base, the height of the pyramid, and the slant height, all I need to do is use
tangent and solve for theta, theta being the angle measure needed.
tan ( ) =

O
A

tan ( ) =

16.71
14

tan 1

=
( 16.71
14 )

50.04
Figure 23. Work to Find the Angle Measure
Figure 23 shows how I found the angle measure between the polygon base and the
pyramid. I found it by using tangent and solved for theta. In order to get theta alone I
had to apply the inverse tangent to both sides. When I did this, I got the angle measure
to be approximately 50.04.
Part Seven: One Lateral Face of the Outer Pyramid
This next part is all about finding the lateral face and the angle measures along
with getting the lateral surface area of the pyramid.

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21.8 Feet

5.57 Feet

Figure 24. Lateral Face of the Outer Pyramid

Figure 24 shows one of the faces of the outer pyramid with labels of what we know.
What will need to be found is the area of this, all of the angle measures in the triangle,
and the lateral surface area of the pyramid.
To find the area of one triangle I am going to use the equation,

1
A= bh
, where
2

b is the base and h is the height. I already know both, so I will just plug the numbers in.

1
A= 5.57 21.8
, after simplifying the final area is approximately 60.70 feet squared.
2
To find the angle measure I in the two bottom corners, I will use tangent.

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tan ( ) =

21.8
2.78

=tan 1

( 21.8
2.78 )

82.72
Figure 25. Work To find Angle Measure of Bottom Corners
Figure 25 shows how I found the angle measures of the two bottom corners. I say to
bottom corners because it is an isosceles triangle, so those two angles are congruent. I
first set up the tangent of theta equals 21.8 over 2.78 because tangent is opposite side
over adjacent side, then I applied the inverse tangent to both sides to get theta alone.
After doing that all, the angle measure is approximately 82.72.
To find the angle measure of the top angle, I will simply take the two angles I
already know, 82.72, and subtract their sum from 180 because there is 180 in a
triangle.
A measure =180 ( 82.72 2 )
A measure =180165.44
A measure 14.56
Figure 26. Work To find Last Angle
Figure 26 shows how I found the angle measure of the last angle in the triangle. As I
explained in the paragraph above, 180 minus 165.44 equals the last angle measure
because all of the angles should make 180

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To find the lateral surface area of the pyramid I will multiply the area of one
triangle by 16, because there is 16 of those triangles in the pyramid.

LSA=A Trian gle 16

LSA=60.70 16
LSA 971.27 Feet Squared

Figure 26. Work For Lateral Surface Area

Figure 26 shows how I found the lateral surface area. As I said before, I just multiplied
the area of one triangle by 16 since that is how many sides there are. After doing all of
that the lateral surface area came out to be approximately 971.27 feet squared.
Part Eight: Pyramid Top of the Inner Pyramid showing the Height of the
Inner Pyramid
In this part all I have to do is find the volume of the inner pyramid. This will be
relatively easy considering the height was said to be three times the side length of
polygon two, and the area of polygon three was already found way back in part two.

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Figure 27. Inner Pyramid

Figure 27 shows the height of the pyramid and one of the sides. Because the height is
three times one of the side lengths of polygon two minus one to make up for the inner
pyramid being one foot lower, we have already found this before in many other parts.
The height of the pyramid is approximately 15.71 feet. Way back in part two, under
figure 8, is where the area of polygon three is. I am using the area of polygon three
because this is inside of the tower, so polygon three is used. The area of polygon three
was found to be approximately 537.86 feet squared.
A
( b h) /3
V =
V=

537.86 15.71
3

V 2781.66 Feet 3
Figure 28. Math for Volume of Pyramid

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Figure 28 shows how I found the volume of the pyramid. The volume formula for a
pyramid is area of the base times the height, divided by three. I already knew all of
these from previous parts so I just had to plug in. After simplifying the final volume was
found to be approximately 2,781.66 feet cubed.
Part Nine: My Tower
For the last math portion, I will be finding the total surface area of the tower and
the entire volume. I could use a long math equation, or I can just add together the
surface areas of the prism and the pyramid, and add together the volumes of the prism
and the pyramid. So I am going to do the most efficient way and use what I already
know. For the surface areas, I will refer to part four where I found the surface area of the
entire prism and to part seven, where I found the surface area of the pyramid. The
numbers I got for those are approximately 959.73 feet squared, for the entire lateral
surface area of the outer wall, and lateral surface area of the pyramid came out to be
approximately 971.27 feet squared, so added together, the entire surface area is
approximately 1931. For the volume, I will refer to part five where I found the volume of
the inner tower, and part eight where I found the volume of the inner pyramid. I got the
volume to be approximately 5,991.26 feet cubed for the volume for the inner prism and
approximately 2,781.66 feet cubed for the volume of the inner pyramid. Added together
the complete volume of the tower is approximately 8,772.92 feet cubed.

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Figure 29. Entire Tower

Figure 29 shows my entire tower. To make it easier I just made it so there were no
faces, and just the lines to where the walls would be in the back.
Part Ten: Conclusion
Its good to finally be done. While Im sure I learned something, I do not see what
I learned now. It was definitely interesting building the model and doing the math. I had
a plot size of 36x36 feet and due to zoning laws became 30x30 feet. I was given the
height of the base, this is in two dimensions, to be 15 feet. There is supposed to be 16
sides to the base of the tower. For the footing, it was three feet thick and three and a
half feet deep into the ground. There is to be an aquarium to be built in the ground on
the inside of the tower filled with around 1203.02 cubic feet of water. The amount of

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cement to fill the footing will be approximately 902.27 feet. The tower should have one
door and two windows, and with that considered the entire surface area of the tower is
approximately 1,931 feet squared and the complete volume of the inside of the tower is
approximately 8,772.91 cubic feet.
Some problems that happened during this is making the model exact was
basically impossible, especially considering there was so many sides to the tower, and
getting all of the angle measures of the model was hard as well. None of the math was
extremely difficult. Other than the model the only other hard thing was to have time
management and not procrastinate, even though I may have for a long while.
It feels good to be finished though. Finishing the tower signifies going to the next
challenge in life. While it is very time consuming, it is sort of fulfilling to finally finish it.
Basically I have no idea what I have learned, other than that I procrastinate (which we
all know), and it is hard to build large models to scale.