Sunday, January 9, 2011

High School Mini Zoo Design


The high school plans to allow the Biology class to build a mini-zoo for small animals such as mice, hamsters, snakes, tarantulas, guinea pigs, etc. Due to budget limitations, costs will be a big concern and design economies must be considered. The cages will be built using 4 ft by 8 ft plywood sheets and 4 ft by 8 ft Plexiglas sheets as the materials. Eight cages will be built. Each cage needs to have a minimum of 360 square inches of floor space. Each cage will be 15 inches tall and one face (side) will have a window for viewing. The window must be at least 10 inches wide.
Your job is to design the “best” mini-zoo. Your solution should include scale drawings of the cages and a written description of the advantages of your zoo design. A material list of will need to be included telling how many sheets of Plexiglas and how many sheets of plywood. Show a cut diagram for how you plan to cut each sheet so that you have all of the pieces needed to construct the zoo cages. Show all math sub-problems used to verify that your solution meets the requirements of the mini zoo.