Expert: David Hemmer - 4/18/2007

Question
The ferris wheel at an amusement park measures 100 ft in diameter. When running at full speed, the wheel makes a complete rotation in 30 seconds. The bottom of the wheel is 4 feet above the ground.

and my question is

Find a trigonometric equation that models the situation.

i have no clue where to even start on that question.

Answer
I suggest you draw a large picture of the Ferris wheel 4 feet off the ground. It has a radius of 50. Draw in the point on the wheel where the people are sitting and connect it to the center of the ferris wheel. Give a name to the angle this makes with vertical. Then you know that that angle rotates 2Pi degrees every 30 seconds. You could say:

Theta=(2Pi*t/30) where t is in seconds. Now you could come up with an equation for the x and y coordinates of the rider at time t, just using trigonometry.