Gutters
November 13, 2001

Mesquite Trees, Anon.
Thorn Avenue
Lubbock, TX 79414

Dear Calculus Student,

You don't know me - my name is Frankly O. Dreary, but you do know my secretary, Betty. She related to me how helpful and resourceful you were on a recent project she placed across your desk.

Safety Subcity, Inc. has recently begun the construction of a series of carefully designed, eminently safe new office buildings in a development immediately outside of the southern boundary of our 13,000 acre parking lot. At the last minute, however, the subcontractor we had working on the design of the gutters for the roofs of building has pulled out, so we are contacting your firm to determine the optimum gutter design for the development.

An optimum gutter will, of course, carry a maximum amount of water, and our design constraints require that it be manufactured from a 15 inch wide piece of material (which we can order in the lengths required to line different roof sections). The machine which forms the gutter from the flat 15 inch wide sheet metal makes 2 creases when shaping the gutter. You may assume that the first crease is a right angle so that the bottom of the gutter comes out perpendicularly from the roof. One edge of the gutter should allow for 1 inch flap for attaching the the gutter to the roof. That then leaves 14 inches of the gutter for carrying the rain off from buildings.

We therefore have contacted you to find the gutter design(s) which will carry the most water from the roof. Because we have already begun the construction of the office buildings, we unfortunately require a fairly speedy response from you, and therefore expect your report to be submitted by the 4th of Dec. If you have questions about this project, be sure to contact Dr. Pearce, whom we have hired as a technical consultant for the project of erecting the office buildings.

For your reference, we have included a copy of our requirements for technical documents. We look forward to seeing your finished report.

Yours sincerely,
Frankly O. Dreary
President, Safety Subcity, Inc.

Encl: Technical report requirements


The technical requirements...
Safety Subcity, Inc.

Technical Report Requirements

All reports submitted to Safety Subcity, Inc. should be written so that the forewomen and foremen of the construction unit implementing the report can understand and apply the information contained therein. Owing to Safety Subcity's preeminent position in the construction field all of our forepeople have degrees in engineering, and thus have had college level mathematics, including calculus---unfortunately, however, their long experience in the field precludes a ready knowledge of the same. Therefore, the reports should assume a strong precalculus and basic calculus (about half a semester of calculus I) background, but should not expect a knowledge of much more than that.

Reports should further:

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