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Printjmc
geometry senior
Problem
Kendra has an unlimited supply of unbreakable sticks of length 2, 4 and 6 inches. Using these sticks, how many non-congruent triangles can she make if each side is made with a whole stick? Two sticks can be joined only at a vertex of the triangle. (A triangle with sides of lengths 4, 6, 6 is an example of one such triangle to be included, whereas a triangle with sides of lengths 2, 2, 4 should not be included.)
Solution
To start, we can make three equilateral triangles, with sides , and . Next, look at isosceles triangles. If two sides have length 6, the remaining side could be since and . The remaining side could also be 4 since and . So, this is two more triangles. If two sides have length 4, the remaining side could have length since and . The remaining side could also have length 2 since and . There are no possible triangles with all sides of different length, since . Thus, there are a total of non congruent triangles.
Final answer
7