Basketballs in The Room


How many basketballs would fit in this room? - Revenue Management Co-op Interview at Delta Air Lines.

How many basketballs would fit in this room? - Revenue Management Co-op Interview at Delta Air Lines.
Answer: 
Since the position is for a revenue management position, the interviewer will want to see that you can think through the math in a practical way. Don't guess. Instead, think aloud as you work out the answer.
Here's a simple way to get a rough estimate of the number of basketballs that will fit in the room.

 Approch 1: Determine the volume of the room. For example if the room is 10ft x 10ft x 10ft the volume would be 1000ft cubed.
The average mens basketball has a diameter of 25-30cm. There is approximately 30cm in a foot. Therefore you could fit one inflated basketball in a 1 foot cubed space.
Therefor you could fit 1000 inflated basketballs inside a room with a volume of 1000 ft cubed.

Approch 2: If we can deflate the basketballs and flatten them down to one inch thick, this would allow us to place 12 flattened basketballs in a 1 foot cubed space.
Therefore you could fit 12,000 basketballs in a room with a volume of 1000 ft cubed.

It would be more complicated depending on the shape of the room but the process for figuring out the solution would be the same.

Asked in: Google, Delta Air Lines


Source: glassdoor

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