Question

Miguel is taining a wooden box. To determine how much stain he needs, he'll to find the surface area of the box.

Answer 1

So Miguel has a wooden box with dimensions L, W, and H for length, width, and height respectively. The volume is easy, V=L*W*H, but that's not what we need. Instead, we need to sum up the area of each side of the box.



We have the top and bottom, which are rectangles with sides L and W. We have the ends, which are rectangles with sides W and H. We have the sides, which are rectangles with sides L and H. The area of a rectangle is simply the product of its length and width.

Total area = area of top and bottom + area of ends + area of sides
= 2 (L*W) + 2(W*H) + 2(L*H)