
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
In a redesign of his company's logo, Wei decided to use a larger square and more circles. Each circle is still tangent to two sides of the square and its adjacent circles, but now there are nine circles arranged in a 3x3 grid instead of a 2x2 grid. If each side of the new square measures 36 inches, calculate the total shaded area in square inches.

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
user