SOH CAH TOA project 2: Area of a circle

The objective of this project is to use trigonometry to calculate the area of regular polygons inscribed in a circle in order to arrive at an approximation for the number \pi.

App: https://www.geogebra.org/m/bktvqhvk

Optional: construct your own diagrams on geogebra.org rather than using the app provided.

Optional: calculate ‘circumscribed’ in addition to inscribed on pages 3, 4, 5, 6.

Project Components and Suggested Structure:

Page 1: Title page & introduction. This page should have the title of your project, your name & date and perhaps an image. The introduction should describe the objective of the project.

Page 2: Explain why a circle has area more than 2 square radii and less than 4 square radii.  That is, 2<\pi<4.  Make relevant diagrams using this applet (or otherwise) to illustrate your writing.

On the next pages use a circle with radius 1. This means that 1 radius square has area 1 unit squared, and that the area of the circle is A=\pi \times r^2.

Page 3: Show calculations (with a GeoGebra diagram) to find the area of triangle inscribed in a circle that has radius 1 unit.

Page 4: Show calculations (with a GeoGebra diagram)  to find the area of a square inscribed in a circle that has radius 1 unit.

Page 5: Show calculations (with a GeoGebra diagram) to find the area of a pentagon or hexagon or octagon or nonagon or decagon in a circle that has radius 1 unit.

Page 6: Show calculations (with a GeoGebra diagram) to find the area of an inscribed – n-agon. Choose a regular polygon with n sides, where n>50

Page 7: Explain the steps required to find the area of any sided regular polygon inscribed in a circle with radius one unit. Draw a flow chart and write the process as a single formula. Verify your flow chart/formula by testing it with any of the values you have already calculated (on page 3, 4, 5 or 6). Explain why the area of your n-agon will always be below the value of \pi.

Page 8: Conclusion. Give an updated estimate for a value of \pi based on your calculations.