Career Event at Common Ground School

03 18 14 Pres 1 resized 600“More so than ever before, being a surveyor requires a general knowledge of technology that you all already possess,” said Calvin Weingart, L.S., to a class of high school students at Common Ground School. As part of a career-event, Calvin and survey technician Peter Grunawalt from Godfrey-Hoffman volunteered to give a presentation about the land surveying profession.

The emphasis of the presentation was on several key points:

  1. Land surveying is always in demand. Almost all construction projects, mortgages and land purchases require some type land survey service.
  2. Surveying also requires tasks inside and outside the office.  If you’re someone who likes to get out and be hands on, but also enjoys the atmosphere of an office, you get the best of both worlds.
  3. Every project is a puzzle, not just in a mathematical sense, but in a conceptual sense as well. This makes the kind of work we do rewarding and always changing.

The big attention “getter” was our robotic total station instrument, the Trimble S6. It is remotely controlled by a data collector with an interface that would be familiar to anyone who has used a computer with Microsoft Windows.

Students chose points from a map and used the instrument to find them. They were surprised to find magnetic nails and pins around their school’s campus that had been there for years without them knowing it. “There’s most likely pins and magnetic nails throughout your neighborhood, and you could find them if you knew where to look,” said Peter.

The students enjoyed the presentation, though who knows how much that was influenced by the snacks that were handed out at the start of class. Regardless, we were happy to plant some surveyor seeds!