Estimation Assignment

Class Assignment EGR 150

Estimation

Directions: This assignment is a 2-3 person team. You have the remaining class time. If you do not finish it is due Sunday evening at 11:59PM. Everyone must submit their own link and present the answers on their webpage. Be sure to include your entire decision process with the necessary calculations.  

Instructions: To be presented on your Blog/webpage with clear navigation to the assignment. The written content should include but not limited to actual files, thoughts on the tools used, any trouble you had, what you did to fix it and any assumptions you made.

Team: Alexandra and Robert

1.     Estimate the number of squirts that you can get out of the window cleaner bottle.

After looking at the window cleaner bottle, Robert and I noticed Mrs. Vestal had taken off the weight information on the packaging. At first, we estimated the number of 16 oz water bottles that could fill the window cleaner bottle, but we soon found it was easier to estimate the total number of ounces that the window cleaner bottle could hold. From there, we estimated that a squirt from the window cleaner bottle was roughly equal to a straw full of solution. We estimated the volume of the straw, converted units, combined our estimated values, and calculated our answer: 400 squirts. (Work and window cleaner pictured below)

Figure 2: Problem 1 Work

Figure 1: Window Cleaner Bottle

2.     Estimate the average building height on the COA Elizabeth City campus. Answer should be in feet [ft] and meters [m]

For this problem, Robert and I decided not to go out into the freezing cold and estimate the height of each building on the COA Elizabeth City campus. Instead, we looked at a virtual map of the COA campus and from our personal experience estimated the number of floors in each building. We then estimated each floor had a height of 10 feet. We excluded buildings on the campus that were not identified on the map (like the landscaper’s shed in the back). It was tough making that distinction because these buildings were technically on COA’s campus, but we felt they weren’t necessary to factor into our calculation. (work pictured below)

Figure 3. Problem 2 Work

3.     Estimate the amount of grassy area in front of the  COA Elizabeth City campus in [km²] and [mi²]

We returned to the online map of the COA Elizabeth City campus and divided the map into 4 sections. We noticed that one section was an approximation of the grassy sections in front of COA. From there, we used our personal experience and the online map to estimate the dimensions of campus and solve for ¼ of that area to represent the grassy sections.

Figure 4: Problem 3 Work

4.     Estimate how long it would take an astronaut to travel to the moon using current technology. [s] and [hours]

For this problem, our first assumption was that the astronaut was traveling in a rocket. We used this assumption as a jumping off point and identified the average distance between the Earth and moon and the speed of rocket traveling to the moon. We set up an equation for time traveled and found our estimated solutions. For me, this was the easiest problem to solve because we were able to search for online estimations of the distance between the Earth and the moon and the speed of a rocket traveling to the moon instead of making our own estimations for these values.

Figure 5: Problem 4 Work