Building a bunk bed

Building a bunk bed requires a lot of calculations and manipulations of numbers. But it was mostly straight forward until I got to the ladder part. Then I had to take out my calculator and figure out the angles, what my piece of wood had to look like in order to make it square with the rest of the bunk bed. It was a great application of my sin, cos, and tan and pythagoras theorem from junior high school.

My husband tried to do it without calculations, just by holding wood by the bunk bed, making markings on the wood in mid air. But by the third time we were trying to cut the same piece of wood, I decided it was time to use my "math brain" and figure it out properly. Attached is a diagram of the type of ladder we were trying to build and some of the dimensions. I looked for the angles and the length of the stick, but I guess anything similar goes for a math question. It was a fun excercise for me.