Spot the Intelligent Deer

JAKE BOTTCHERZACK MALONE

• One day a deer got very upset and left all of his fellow deer friends. He ran many miles until he found a completely different group of deer friends. He tried to introduce himself as Spot. All the new deer he met did not accept him. He had to think of a way to make them like him

• Spot thought for many days. He finally came up with a great idea; he would make a really cool salt lick in the shape of a pentagon. He found out that the formula for area of a pentagon was the base of one of the triangles times the height of one of the triangles multiplied times five and then divided by two. He considered himself Albert Einstein.

• He wanted his salt lick to be very big. He decided he would measure it in smoots. A smoot is 67 inches and was named after Oliver Smoot. He was sure that this would get all the others deer attention. The pentagon would have equal side lengths of 7 smoots.

• So now Spot had his work cut out for him. The math equation should begin. He started by dividing his pentagon into five congruent triangles. Each triangle had an angle of 72 degrees. Since Spot had to get the height of the triangle, he bisected that angle. Now each triangle was divided into two equal triangles with one angle of 36 degrees and one side of 3.5 smoots.

• Now Spot had had to get the height of of his five triangles. He did tan36= 3.5 divided by x. He figured out that x equaled 4.817

• But he needed more than just the height of the triangles. He multiplied 4.817 by 3.5 to get the area of one of the five triangles. He found out that each triangle had an area of 16.859 square moots.

• Spot was almost done with his equation. Now he had to multiply 16.859 by five to get the area of his pentagon. He finally figured the area of his huge salt lick; 84.297 square smoots. Spot was very proud of himself.

• Soon word spread that Spot had the biggest salt lick in all the woods. Many deer came to feed on the salt lick regularly. Spot became the most popular deer in all the area and soon had many friends he could rely on.