Building a Wheelchair Ramp Model With Slope 1/12
The scenario was the following.
Grandma wanted to come see her grandson play high school
football but the bleachers were not wheelchair accessible. The students were
asked to build a model wheelchair ramp that was accessible to the top bleacher
while also staying within ADAs (Americans With Disabilities) building code—the slope
must be exactly 1/12 throughout the ramp.
The students were giving the following model conversion
scale
5 yards = 1 inch.
Using this, they modeled a 120 x 50 yards football field into
a 24’’ x 10’’ football field.
Next, using the bleachers my six year old son built for
them, they measured the height at 2’’.
Using the 1/12 slope, they built a 24’’
incline wheelchair ramp.
Then converted these scaled numbers to real life. 5 yards =
1 inch. Meaning a 2’’ height = 10 yards of actual height and 24’’ ramp = 120
yards.
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