Is there an equation to figure the side lengths of an octagon?
Each side would need to be 3.3137 feet long, or 3 feet 3.76 inches. I don’t know if you care why, but if you connect from the center to each corner of the octagon, you form 8 triangles. Split one of these in half. This will give you a right triangle, where the small angle (at the center of the octagon) measures 360/16 = 22.5 degrees. Since you want the whole thing to be 8 feet across, the leg of this right triangle from the center to the edge measures 4 feet. Let the other leg be x feet long. This is half the length of one side of the octagon. Using trig, tan(22.5) = x/4 x = approx 1.66, so doubling this we get that the side length is approx 3.31 feet. By the way, this is for one flat edge to be 8 feet from the opposite flat edge. If you want it to be 8 ft from one corner to the opposite corner as Chance did in his HEXAGON below, then sin(22.5) = x/4, so each side would be approx. 3.061 ft. I hope this helps!
