Question

A youth group is setting up camp. Rain is predicted, so the campers decide to build a fly, or rain cover, over their tent. The fly will be 12 feet high and 16 feet wide. The scouts are building the frame for the fly with two poles slanted and joined together at the top of the tent.
The minimum length of the slanted poles needed to support the fly is
feet.

Answer 1

We model the problem as shown in the diagram below.

To find the length of slanted pole, we use Pythagoras Theorem