Dan Marei S.

Chua STEM 11C October 29, 2021

PRE-CALCULUS PERFORMANCE TASK
The cable of the middle part of a suspension bridge with 200 m high poles were affected
by a typhoon and was broken. Each pole is 800 m apart. As the Lead Architect of a
construction firm, you are tasked to have a plan to fix the cable. Your plan will be
evaluated using the following criteria: Computation, Application of Conic Sections, and
Illustration.
Given: 200m high poles & 800m apart
Solution:
y=ax2 1 p=200 x2 = ?
a= 4p
200= a(400)2 x2 = 4py
1
200 a(160,000) =
= 800 x2 = 4(200)y
160,000 160,000 1
200 4p x2 = 800y
160,000
=a

1
a= 800

Graph:

→ PARABOLA
x2 = 800y
Vertex: (0,0)
Focus: (0,p) = (0,200)
Opening of the Graph: p>0, Opens Upward
Latus Rectum: x= 200
Endpoints of Latus Rectum: (p,±2p) = (200,400) and (200,-400)
Axis of Symmetry: x=k = x=0
Directrix: y=-p = y= -200

From this, I conclude that if the cable in the middle part of a suspension bridge
has 200 m high poles where each pole is 800 m apart, with the help of my solution and
illustration, we can see what the cable looks like and have these measurements. In the
process of solving how we got to have those, I got to solve first and look for the value of
1
a, which is with the use of the formula y=ax 2. Then after I already determined the
800
value of a, I do the next thing in the process, which is solving for p with the use of the
same formula, but this time I substituted the a that I got for the value of p, and after
getting the value of p, I proceed to get the value of x 2 with the use of the formula x2=4py.
That resulted in x2=800y. And after I got those, I plotted the point in the cartesian plane,
and it resulted that the given is like a parabolic shape where its direction opens upward.
And as the Lead Architect of a construction firm, and was tasked to have a plan to fix
the cable that were affected by a typhoon and was broken, the only thing that I can do
together with the team is to replace each cable with an equal impedance along with
their lengths as the length of the Latus Rectum, which is x=200, for it to be like having a
balance, and also have equal impedances to ground and to other circuits.