Students will need a ruler or straight edge and a pencil for this activity. Before seeing how to apply these concepts, students must gather and organize data, then search for patterns. A ball hit in this way will bounce off the sides at a 45 degree angle. Also, if a grid is placed on the table, the ball always traverses on diagonals of the squares of the grid. Students first learn how to predict the pocket into which a ball will fall and the number of hits as the ball crosses the table.
Students further develop their analytical skills by investigating the number of squares crossed.
All three relations depend upon the lengths of the sides of the pool tables.