Chapter 7: Polynomial Operations and Models

Designing a House

Imagine you are in the market to buy a new

house. Rather than purchasing a pre-existing
home, however, you decide to buy an empty
lot and build your house from scratch.
Unfortunately, you have a budget which
limits the square footage of the house you can
feasibly afford. You must create a floor plan
which details the relative dimensions of your
home, then use your desired square footage
and your knowledge of polynomials to
calculate what the actual dimensions of your
home will be.

The Budget) If you are currently wearing long pants, your budget for this project is $200,000. If
you are wearing shorts, you get $400,000. However, if you wear glasses or contact lenses, you
get your initial budget plus an additional $100,000 (so either $300,000 or $500,000).

Finding the Square Footage) You do some research and find that, on average, it costs around
$200 per square foot to build a custom home in your area. With this in mind, what is the
maximum square footage that you can likely afford? Now, how many square feet will your house
have (you can choose any value less than or equal to the maximum)?
 Chapter 7: Polynomial Operations and Models

Designing the Floor Plan) Now you can draw a floor plan, or 2-D design, of your home. You
may design your home however you like. How many floors will it have? What shape will the
house have? What rooms will you include and where will they be? In addition, you must include
the relative dimensions of each space in your home. In order to do this, choose one length to be
“x.” Every other measurement will be related to this value “x” in some way (for example, you
could have “2x” or “x+3”). You can find an example of using relative dimensions below:

2x

x
As you can see, one length is
arbitrarily selected to be “x” and the
others are related to that value. In
this way, while we don’t know the
length of each side of the rooms, we
do know how large they are relative
to each other. Your model does not
x+4 need to be drawn perfectly to scale.

x
Requirements) Your house must:
 Have at least 4 rooms
 Use a combination of different monomials/polynomials to describe the relative
dimensions (for example, you could use both monomials and binomials, or maybe even
trinomials as well)

Finding the Dimensions) Now that you have your floor plan, you can figure out what “x” is in
order to find the actual dimensions of your home (hint: how can you relate everything you know
into an equation?). See the next page for an additional math hint. Once you have found “x”, you
can plug in that value to find the dimensions of each room. Include these dimensions on the
sketch of your floor plan.
 Chapter 7: Polynomial Operations and Models

Math Hint: We can use a variety of mathematical methods to solve “polynomial equations.” That being
said, one easy way to solve these equations involves using a graphing calculator or another (online)
graphing software. Below are instructions for how to complete this process on a TI-84 graphing calculator.

First, you will need to perform some algebra to make one side of your equation equal to zero (in other
words, get everything onto one side of the equation).

Example equation: 3x4 + 2x2 – 7 = 0

Step 1) Press the Step 2) In “y1,” enter Step 3) Press Step 4) Press “2nd,”
“y=” button. the expression which “graph” to view “trace,” and then
you set equal to zero your function. select the “zero”
(this now becomes a option. This will allow
polynomial function). you to find where the
expression you
entered equals zero.

Step 5) Use the left and right

arrow keys to move along
the curve. The function
equals zero when the graph
crosses the x-axis. If your
graph has multiple “zeros,”
choose one where the x- Step 7) Place the cursor close to the zero and
value will be positive (can a press enter. The coordinates of this point will
physical length be appear on the screen. The given x value is the
negative?). Place the cursor a solution to your original equation.
little bit left of the zero and
press “enter.”

Step 6) Now, place

the cursor a bit to the
right of the zero and
press enter.
 Chapter 7: Polynomial Operations and Models

You can perform the same process using the website Desmos
(https://www.desmos.com/calculator). Enter your function on
the left of the screen, and the graph will appear. Hovering your
cursor over any point on the graph will reveal its coordinates.

Extension Question) You plan on having lots of guests over, so you decide to build a small
guest house. This will cost you around $60,000 to build, meaning you will have less money for
your house. With this updated budget, what are the new dimensions of your home if you decide
to utilize the maximum affordable square footage (will they change at all?)?

Image URLs:
https://clipartstation.com/cottage-clipart-2/