SOLUTION: I am planning to hit multiple tennis balls the equator of the Earth for charity. I am using a ball machine for this. I need some help as my maths/algebra is poor. A standard tennis

Question 1119495: I am planning to hit multiple tennis balls the equator of the Earth for charity. I am using a ball machine for this. I need some help as my maths/algebra is poor. A standard tennis court is 20 metres long, therefore 1km is 50 hits of the ball. I plan to do this for 16 hours per day and would like to complete this challenge in 2/3 weeks. Can you please work out how many balls I would need to hit a day to make this work. I really need your help. This has never been done before and I need some guidance.
Thanks
Robyn
Answer by Theo(13342) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
the standard tennis court is 20 meters long.
1 kilometer is 50 hits of the ball.

if the ball travels the length of the court, then 50 hits of the ball equals 20 * 50 = 1000 meters = kilometer.

you plan to do this for 16 hours per day and want to complete the challenge in 2 to 3 weeks.

your answer depends on the rate at which the tennis ball machine spits out tennis balls and the rate at which you can reload the machine.

for example, lets's assume the tennis ball machine can spit out a tennis ball every 6 seconds and can hold 100 tennis balls.

the machine will empty itself in 6 * 100 = 600 seconds / 60 = 10 minutes.

let's also assume it takes you 10 minutes to pick up the balls and put them back in the machine.

therefore, one complete cycle of filling the machine and shooting all its balls will take 20 minutes.

20 minutes is equal to 1/3 of an hour.

if you were able to continuously shoot the machine and fill it up again for all 16 hours, then you would be able to shoot and fill the machine 16 / (1/3) = 48 times in a 16 hour day.

that doesn't sound very practical because you need to go to the bathroom, have lunch, drink some water, or whatever else that takes time out from shooting the balls and filling the machine.

a more practical limit would be maybe 12 hours a day of continuous shooting and filling with rests in between to fill out the 16 hour day.

you can adjust the numbers as you see fit.

so, assuming you can do this continuously for 12 hours a day, then you would be able to shoot and fill 12 / (1/3) = 36 machine fulls a day.

now you say you want to be able to complete this in 2 to 3 weeks.

assuming you just want to shoot as many as you can in 2 to 3 weeks, then:

assuming 36 machine fulls a day for 5 days each week, then you would be able to do 36 * 5 = 180 machine fulls a week.

in 2 weeks, that would be 360 machine fulls and in 3 weeks that would be 540 machine fulls.

if the full machine contains 100 balls, as in this example, then you would be able to hit 360 * 100 = 3600 balls in 2 weeks and 540 * 100 = 5400 balls in 3 weeks.

if the machine you're using breaks down, then you're out of luck and the numbers go out the window.

bottom line:

you need to figure out the capacity of the machine you're going to use and how fast it can spit out the balls and how long it takes to refill it when its empty and how many hours you can reasonable work without a break per day and then apply the figures to get your estimated totals per day and then figure out how many days a week you're going to do this and then you can estimate the approximate number of balls you can spit out in the specified time.

if your goal is to spit out a specified number of balls, then you can divide the estimated number of balls per week that you can reasonably shoot into that number and it will tell you how many weeks you can expect it to take.

sounds complicated, but it's not as bad as you think once you understand the factors involved and how to apply them.

hopefully you get the idea.

if you can supply me with additional information in line with what i told you that you needed to know, i can probably come up with a reasonable estimate for you.

RELATED QUESTIONS
Hello My name is Yash Shah. I am doing summer course for Algebra II and I have a... (answered by Earlsdon,Theo)

An urn contained 6 white balls and 5 black balls. Two of the white balls and one of the... (answered by Boreal)

Hi, I got stuck in a question:There are 5 Black balls, 4 red balls, and 1 blue ball in a... (answered by Boreal,ikleyn)

Scientists would like to place an artificial satellite into orbit at a height of 23,025... (answered by lwsshak3)

please help me solve this. tennis balls are packed into a square box 12 inches on one... (answered by vleith)

If a tennis ball container has a diameter of 2.625 inches and a height of 7.875 inches... (answered by Alan3354)

A tax exempt Charity received a bill of $145.90 for a sump pump. The bill incorrectly... (answered by jorel1380)

Can anyone help me figure this out? A tennis ball can in the shape of a right circular... (answered by stanbon)

Two faulty tennis ball machines start to shoot balls from opposite sides of a 25 meter... (answered by hudikamo,ikleyn)