AMC10/12
2018


Problem - 4012
Sara makes a staircase out of toothpicks as shown: [asy] size(150); defaultpen(linewidth(0.8)); path h = ellipse((0.5,0),0.45,0.015), v = ellipse((0,0.5),0.015,0.45); for(int i=0;i<=2;i=i+1) { for(int j=0;j<=3-i;j=j+1) { filldraw(shift((i,j))*h,black); filldraw(shift((j,i))*v,black); } } [/asy] This is a 3-step staircase and uses 18 toothpicks. How many steps would be in a staircase that used 180 toothpicks?

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