Of Bratwursts and Ducks

So, it's Sunday. A day reserved for church worship, dress clothes, potlucks, and CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS! And in order to save time, we've decided to forego both the church part and the dressing up part.

We're going to spending the day putting a roof on the duck dome. We pretty much finished everything that can be finished without a roof yesterday, then we hit the lumber store one last time before they close for the weekend and now we're ready to roll. This is where we're at:

As you cab maybe see, the structure is a bunch of equilateral triangles. The walls and floor are 8 ft. triangles and the roof is 10 ft. triangles. The peak of the dome is 11.5 ft., which made for a good geometry question in the truck on the way to the hardware store. "If the vertical drop from the peak to the top of the wall is 3.5 feet, and the roof strut from the peak to the edge of the wall is 8 feet, what is the radius of the dome?

We decided that that equation would require both a calculator and beer, so we waited to get home to figure it out.

The triangle frame is achieved by connecting the wall struts of a bunch of 5 sided metal plates, which can be used either for building purposes or as s handy outline for all your Satan worshiping pentagonal needs:

We've managed to lure our friends and families into this project with a promise of bratwursts and beer. They don't yet know what lies ahead. Heh. Suckers.