Read and respond to the following:

Chip ran through a maze in less than a minute the first time he tried. His times got better for a while with each new try, but then his times got worse (he took longer) due to fatigue as his legs got tired.

The amount of time Chip took to run through the maze on the a^th try can be modeled by t = 0.5a² - 9a + 48.5 where t = time in seconds.

Count the number of letters in either your first or last name and use this as the value to substitute for the variable a and then calculate the time t. Compare your time to others. Is it higher or lower? Why?