You are building a sandbox and the length needs to be twice as long as the width. If you have 24ft of wood to build the sandbox, what will the dimensions be (length and width) ?

Hi!

Let's use L and W to denote Length and Width. The total length of wood necessary is P = 2L + 2W. But L = 2W. Thus,

P = 2 (2W) + 2W = 24

and

P = 6W = 24. Then W = 4 and L = 2W = 8.

The dimensions of the sandbox should be 4 by 8 feet.