Well done to:
William and Edward, Josh, Nick and Jeffy, who began to think
about the "why" of the pattern (all from King's College School,
Cambridge). Katherine and Rosie (The Mount School, York),
Andrei (School 205, Bucharest) and Clement. A partial solution
was also recieved from Vivienne (Akadmisches Gymnasium,
Vienna).
The angle at the centre of the arc of each petal can be calculated as:
$360^{\circ} - 2 \times60^{\circ}$
The interior angle of the polygon $ = 240^{\circ} - 180(1-2/n)^{\circ}$
Giving the length of the side of the equilateral triangle as 1 unit
The length of each arc (petal) can be calculated as:
$ 2\pi(240 - \frac{180(1-\frac{2}{n})}{360}) $
As there as many arcs as there are sides of the polygon, the total length of all the arcs is:
$ n \times 2\pi (240 - \frac{180\left(1-\frac{2}{n}\right)}{360}) = \pi(\frac{n}{3} + 2) $
The perimeter of the petals increases by $ \frac {\pi}{3} $ when the polygon increases its number of sides by one.