Garnet Smith

Ari Liberman
Saige Rasmussen

Pre-note
The entity who wrote this write up had to sound in third person so that all parties who
worked on the problem go credit. The parties involved are the ones written above.

Problem
The problem we faced was finding a pattern to describe and find the maximum
amount of pieces one could cut out of a pie using any amount of cuts. First we were given
the task of drawing out pies with 4 or 5 cuts in them, in different patterns trying to find
the maximum amount of pieces from 4 and 5 cuts. After that we attempted to find a
pattern within a in and out table to accurately describe what was happening. Then we used
the pattern we created to find the amount of pieces you can get from ten cuts. After that
we made a formula or equation with variables that you can you use to find any amount of
cuts and the pieces outcome.

Process
We first started by drawing circles and putting lines through them with a ruler
randomly. We then started to realize that it's more efficient and creates more pieces of
pie if you create close together lines that cross over each other and after that made lines
that crossed over those close together lines. It made it so it created quite a few pieces
and then crossed over and doubled the pieces or more! We did this 5 times for 4 and 5
cuts and found the maximum amount of cuts for both. We then imported maximums for 0,4
and 5 to a table already containing maximum cuts for 1,2 and 3. Then we perfected our rule
and made a equation/formula.

Solution
We examined the table for along time. We found that when you added 1 to each
amount that you added going up from pieces you got the correct amount of cuts. But this
did not work after 5 which meant it was wrong. We then perfected it and found that if
your looking at the amount of cuts you can find the amount of pieces. We found that for
finding any amount of pieces all you had to do was take the next number of cuts after your
your desired cuts, and add all number below that except the desired cut number, but
including 0. For instance if your trying to find the amount of pieces for 4 cuts. Then you
would add the next number (in this instance 5) to all the rest of the number under your
desired cuts (4.) So it would look like this 5+3+2+1+0 which equals 11 pieces. This works for
any pieces you want to find from cuts. We found that the maximum number of pieces from
10 cuts of 56 pieces when using our method. In this instance for 10 cuts, its
11+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=56 pieces. To create a formula with variables we came up with
(x+1)+(x-1)+(x-2)+(x+3)+(x-4)...... to the amount of pieces you're using for x variable.

Evaluation
We thought this POW was a more fun but challenging one. Our thinking for this is
that first we got to play around with cutting pies, and then we had to critically think,
discuss and evaluate different methods of finding the correct answer. Which took time
considering variables. But we all thought it was quite beneficial working in this group as we
all were able to expand upon each other ideas and formulas to create a consensus. We
think it's a very valuable skill to learn of having little direction and attempting to find a
large formula. Overall we enjoyed this POW and wish for more like it!