Painting Lines for Football

Date: 6/3/96 at 18:16:4
From: George Dickenson
Subject: Painting a field

A football field is 120 yards long with 10 yards at each end zone, 
and 60 yards wide with lines marked 5 yards apart except for the end 
zones. One can of paint will stripe 300 linear feet. How many cans 
would it take to stripe a football field?

Date: 6/14/96 at 0:56:23
From: Doctor Brian
Subject: Re: math problems

There are two sidelines 120 yards long.  Or is it 140 - that is, does 
the 120 include the end zones or not?

There are then either 23 or 27 stripes for yard lines, depending on 
whether the field is 120 or 140 yards long.

To determine the total length of the lines we either have:

(2*140) + (27*60) = 280 + 1620 = 1900 yards

or

(2*120) + (23*60) = 240 + 1380 = 1620 yards.

Since each can paints 100 yards, divide into the total number of yards 
to get either 19 or 16.2 cans.

-Doctor Brian,  The Math Forum
 Check out our web site!  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/