Activity: Explore It – SOHCAHTOA
Scaffolded, hands-on practice
Practice identifying and applying the correct trigonometric functions to solve for missing sides or angles.
◆ CHOOSE
◆ REPRESENT
○ MODEL
★ JUSTIFY
Example: Imagine you have a robotic arm with an opposite side (vertical lift) of 4 cm and an adjacent side (horizontal distance) of 3 cm. You want to find the angle (θ) of the arm's joint.
Known sides: Opposite (4 cm) and Adjacent (3 cm).
Trig function: Use Tangent (TOA) because you have the opposite and adjacent sides.
Equation: tan(θ)=4/3
Inverse function: θ=tan-1(4/3)
Calculate: θ≈53.13°
So, the angle of the robotic arm's joint would be approximately 53.13°