I have a problem for my Calc 3 class that I've been stuck on for a while now:
Consider 2 people, Mike and Sam, that are pulling an object along a flat surface with a rope that is 8 ft long. Mike holds the rope 2ft above the object and 1 ft to the left side with a magnitude of 20 lbs. Sam holds the rope 1 ft above the object and 1 ft to the right side with a magnitude of 30 lbs. Find the resultant force.
So far, I've defined a 3 dimensional coordinate system with x being the horizontal axis, z being the vertical axis, and y being the forward axis. I've used the length of the rope to calculate to the y component of the direction vectors for each force and have added the two to come up with components of the resultant force. Then, I found the magnitude - but my answer made no sense and was clearly wrong.
Would appreciate any and all help with this problem (seriously, I'm pretty sure my grade depends on it!)