Engineers in Training: Measure to Measure

Page 3

Gather Data

In order to optimize surface area and volume we need to make different sized boxes to test for surface area and volume.

Our first box had 3x3 squares cut out of the corners of the piece of paper. We called that a cut of 3. Next we will to cut out 4x4 squares from the corners of a another sheet of paper. We'll call that a cut of 4 and so on. Let's keep doing this for cuts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Cuts 1-9

cut of 1	cut of 2	cut of 3
cut of 4	cut of 5	cut of 6
cut of 7	cut of 8	cut of 9

Now that we have our boxes, let's measure the surface area by counting the number of squares on the surface of the box. Find the volume by using the Volume Applet. Also, let's find out how much sand the boxes can hold by pouring in sand, leveling off the top, and measuring the mass.

Put the data in a chart like this:

cut (units)	surface area (square units)	mass (kg)	volume (units cubed)

Sample Data!

On to page 4!