Equally Wet POW

Emma Poitras

Problem Statement

If you were to arrange 3 flowers in a way that would allow them to be watered equally by a
sprinkler, in what formation would you place the flowers and the sprinkler? What about 4 or 5
flowers?

Visual Representation

2 Flowers 3 Flowers

4 Flowers 5 Flowers

Process

I felt confident solving this POW because of the fact that we did the first problem as a class(2
flowers), because of this and the fact that we were focusing on geometric shapes I knew that I
should just place the flowers on points of different shapes depending on the amount of flowers.
For 3 flowers, I placed them on the points of an equilateral triangle, I knew that this way all sides
were equal and therefore the same distance to the center. Same goes with 4 flowers, or the square
shape, if the sprinkler were placed in the exact middle, then the distance to each point would be
the same. Same for the pentagon or 5 flowers, each distance is the same to the middle.

Solution

3: An equilateral triangle, sprinkler in the exact center

4: Square, sprinkler placed in exact center
5: Pentagon, sprinkler placed in exact center

Evaluation

This was mostly a pretty easy POW as far as content and actual math/math knowledge goes. The
only thing that I struggled with slightly was wording things correctly. I know that there are
correct mathematical/geometric words to use for all of the things I talked about, just finding the
correct ways to say it was slightly challenging/confusing.

Self Assessment

I think that I deserve an A/A- on this POW because I have included good visual representation of
my solutions and I feel that I understand the content well. That being said I deserve an A/A-
based off of the things I’ve described.