Heron’s Formula

The Heron’s formula is a famous formula used to calculate the area of a triangle based on the length of its three sides. It is called “Heron’s Formula” (sometimes called Hero’s formula) after Hero of Alexandria who was a Greek Engineer and Mathematician in 10 – 70 AD.

Python Task

Your task is to write a function called calculateTriangleArea(). Your function will:

• Take three parameters corresponding to the length of the 3 sides of a triangle: a, b and c,
• Apply Heron’s formula to calculate the area of the triangle,
• Return the area of the triangle.

You will also then need to create a small program that will:

• Ask the user to enter the length of the three sides of a triangle,
• Calculate the area of the triangle using the calculateTriangleArea() function,
• Output the area of the triangle.

Video Tutorial

Python Code

Test Plan:

Once your code is done, complete the following tests to check it is working as expected:

Test #	Input Values (in cm)	Expected Output (in cm2)	Pass/Fail?
#1	First side: 3 Second side: 4 Third side: 5	Area: 6
#2	First side: 8 Second side: 10 Third side: 12	Area: 39.686
#3	First side: 4 Second side: 8 Third side: 10	Area: 15.199

Extension Task #1

Create some extra functions to calculate the area of a square, of a rectangle and of a disc. Each function will need to accept the relevant parameters needed to calculate the area of the desired shape.

Extension Task #2

Create a menu system, where the user is asked what shapes they would like to calculate the area of before being asked to enter the relevant dimensions.

Did you know?

Hero published a well-recognized description of a steam-powered device called an aeolipile (sometimes called a “Hero engine”). Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land.