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- #11
- Mar 25, 2009
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Well I just had a bit of a mental break through, thought it may lead to nothing. I thought I'd share anyway. Go read something else if you hate math
It occurred to me suddenly, out of the blue, that the big thing I want to do is reduce surface area in the house--less surface area = less plywood = less weight. Of course, being the dork that I am, it took me this long to remember basic algebra. Remember those bizarre fencing problems? You know the type, Farmer Bob needs to fence two acres, fence is $2 a foot, what are the dimensions of the field fenced by the cheapest amount of fence? I was good at math and those still seemed weird to me. I guess they actually had a real life use!
Anyway, the answer is always a square (unless you're not forced to have straight edges, in which case it's a circle, but I digress). Squares give you the biggest area for the smallest perimeter.
I didn't realize how dramatically true this was until I did the numbers out for a squarer setup that fit my area needs. The "house" part alone drops from needing about 100 square feet of plywood to needing about 79, and that wasn't even a perfect square (because I'm not making a chicken house that's 5.29150262213 ft on each side, that's why
) The framing doesn't drop as dramatically, but it's not square, either. A square inside a square is hard to do in a usable way.
At this point it becomes somewhat awkwardly wide (6'), but I'd already given up on using it to let them patrol the squash bugs during growing season (taking a couple of the ladies for a spin in a dog cage when necessary seems a better idea for that).
It occurred to me suddenly, out of the blue, that the big thing I want to do is reduce surface area in the house--less surface area = less plywood = less weight. Of course, being the dork that I am, it took me this long to remember basic algebra. Remember those bizarre fencing problems? You know the type, Farmer Bob needs to fence two acres, fence is $2 a foot, what are the dimensions of the field fenced by the cheapest amount of fence? I was good at math and those still seemed weird to me. I guess they actually had a real life use!
Anyway, the answer is always a square (unless you're not forced to have straight edges, in which case it's a circle, but I digress). Squares give you the biggest area for the smallest perimeter.
I didn't realize how dramatically true this was until I did the numbers out for a squarer setup that fit my area needs. The "house" part alone drops from needing about 100 square feet of plywood to needing about 79, and that wasn't even a perfect square (because I'm not making a chicken house that's 5.29150262213 ft on each side, that's why
At this point it becomes somewhat awkwardly wide (6'), but I'd already given up on using it to let them patrol the squash bugs during growing season (taking a couple of the ladies for a spin in a dog cage when necessary seems a better idea for that).
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