Question

the cardboard box below is used by a companyto package new laptops. If the company plans to increase the length of the box by 2 inches. what is the minimum amount of extra cardboard needed to construct the new box?

Answer 1

For this question you have to calculate the superficial area of the new box, considering that its length is going to be 20 +2 inches = 22 inches, the formula for the area for any given rectangular prism is given by

`\begin{gathered} 2(a\cdot b+a\cdot c+b\cdot c) \\ a\text{ is the height} \\ b\text{ is the width} \\ c\text{ is the length} \end{gathered}`

Then to calculate the extra carboard we need two areas, the area of the original box and the area of the modified one, susbtituting in the formula for the original box (c= 20, a= 5 and b=16) we get 1000 in^2. Now for the modified box ( c=22, a= 5 and b=16) we get 1084in^2.

Finally we conclude that we need 84 in^2 extra of cardboard.