A Friend Asked How One Would Find the Surface Area of a Tim Hortons Coffee Cup

While out for coffee at Tim Hortons with a friend, he said that it would be really cool if he knew what all the parts of the cup are called in terms of 3D math objects and how to calculate the surface area of a Tim Hortons cup. So, as one who never misses an opportunity to fulfill my friends’ math dreams (haha… it is rare!), I set out to make a fairly complete attempt at this. You might find this of interest.

Teachers might want to use this idea as a class project (maybe having different groups of students find the surface area of different sizes of cups, for example). Obviously, the surface area would be an approximation (as nearly all surface areas in the real world are), but it would be more detailed and precise than just finding the surface area of the cup and treating it as a cylinder (as I have seen done online). An extension would be to also use the measurements to find the volume of the cup, and then measure the volume of the cup by filling it with water and pouring the water into a measuring device. Also, have students compare the surface area to the volume.

It was a good Sunday morning coffee visit!