The local High School has asked if some of the students could come by our office later on this month to see what Surveyors do. I've only got about a half hour, so I can't go too deep into it.
Any ideas? I want to keep the kids interested, and what is exciting to me might not be to the Potential Surveyor of Tomorrow (tm). I'm at least going to have the total station set up and ready to go (show off some of that robotic mode magic).
The main goal here is to win them over from the clutches of the Civil Engineers, who will also be in attendance. That'd be a tragedy.
Like surveyors and teachers, they're all different. If CA is like NC, they have studied some very elementary applications of trig that answers survey questions.
For example, they will have determined the height of a building using the angle of elevation and a horizontal distance from the building, an application of the tangent. Their angle of elevation is the complement of your vertical angle.
So one suggestion would be to set up a total station so that the angle and distance needed to solve a height problem can be found.
If you can talk to one of their math teachers, he/she could give you more insight. You will indeed hook one or more students on the work and the profession.
Hello THiggins,
How about showing them the field to finish workflow? Maybe use GPS to locate the four corners of your office building, then do a quick AutoCAD drawing.
Regards,
Mark
Perhaps you could show them some slides of your fire engine red Maserati, vacation home in Vail and some recent financial statements documenting where you keep your gold ingots stored. That's what they're really looking for.
Photos from days of dipping manholes, chopping line and dodging traffic should be not be made available for viewing.
3D DTM Fly throughs on the computer and have a Robotic set up with guide lights and Jigga Tracking the pole.
Can also get the kids to use it as a telescope (and Lazer pointer) if you have a Window handy.
> The main goal here is to win them over from the clutches of the Civil Engineers, who will also be in attendance. That'd be a tragedy.
The future civil engineer / surveyor thing is easy to sort out among high school students:
Date for the prom = Surveyor
Stay home and play video games = Engineer
