An architect designs a house that is 12m wide. The rafters holding up the roof are equal length and meet at an angle of 68 degrees. The rafters extend 0.6m beyond the supporting wall. How long are the rafters?

Answer 1

If you draw this you'll have a figure of a rectangle with a triangle on its top. The base of the triangle is 12 meters (equal to side length of rectangle). Half of the base is 6 m, and drawing a line as the height of the triangle, you can form two right triangles. Thus, the hypotenuse can be determined from
cos (angle) = adjacent / hypotenuse
cos (68) = 6 / hypotenuse
hypotenuse = 16.017

Since rafters extend 0.6 m, the total length of a rafter is
16.017 + 0.6 = 16.617 m

hope this helps? `u`