A manufacturer is making cardboard boxes by cutting out four equal squares from the corners of the rectangular piece of cardboard and then folding the remaining part into a box. The length of the cardboard piece is 1 in. longer than its width. The manufacturer can cut out either 3 × 3 in. squares, or 4 × 4 in. squares. Find the dimensions of the cardboard for which the volume of the boxes produced by both methods will be the same.
a. How can you represent the volume of the box using one variable?