Question

Does anyone know how to find the surface area of this triangular prism?

Answer 1

well, check the picture below, that's a triangular prism

so.. if you notice, is really just 2 triangles and 3 rectangles stacked up to each other at the edges

so.. if you just find the area of the 3 rectangles, and the two triangles, sum all five areas up, and you're golden

in your picture, notice the tickmarks, that triangle has all sides equal to each other, so.. if one is 6 units, so are the other sides as well

now.. to get the area of a triangle is 1/2bh as you'd know... so.. what the dickens is the "h" or height of the triangle anyway, well
`\bf \textit{height of an equilateral triangle}\\\\ h=\cfrac{s√(3)}{2}\qquad s=\textit{length of one side}`

that's the altitude or height, you already know the base, notice the tickmark

so, get the area of those 2 triangles, and the 3 rectangles and sum them up, and that's the surface area of the triangular prism