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NSPS Spring

Meeting and Student

Competition 2024

By: Heather Keenan

This Year’s Student
Competition was
again organized by
Young Surveyors Net-
work in Washington,
DC. The participation
from Colleges around
the County was ex-
cellent. In total, 21
schools from around
the Nation competed was tasked with turning angles on a T2 to calculate the coordinates
in the competition, of an unknown coordinate for the monument Jeffersons Pier. It
from Cal Poly Tech was great to see the outside interest from passers-by wondering
to the University of and asking what we were doing, especially because students were
Puerto Rico and even given extra credit for wearing Surveying attire from any past time
two teams from Klein period. Thank you to Les and Lisa Van Horn for bringing the equip-
Collins High School ment from NWTC, WSLS Foundation, and their personal collection
from Texas. The com- and guiding the traverse exercise.
petition structure
was similar to last
year, but due to the number of schools, half participated in the
monument hunt portion one day, while the other half tackled the
field exercises. The monument hunt consisted of each school and
a young surveyor scavenging around the city for NGS monuments.
They were given an ArcGIS field map app designed by Linda Foster,
ESRI of the monuments, including the NGS data sheets. Different
point values were given to over 60 monuments. Their appointed
young surveyor then recorded a picture of the monument, and ex-
tra points were given to teams that posted a picture of the monu-
ment to social media. Be sure to lookup up #nsps and #ysn to find
these posts on various social media platforms.

All field exercises took place near the Washington Monument. The
field exercises comprised a four-sided traverse, level loop, and tri-
angulation. Young Surveyors were at each station to set up the
equipment, judge the professionalism, and time the student’s
computations. For
the traverse, stu-
dents were given a
Dumpy levels and A social event after the competition Wednesday evening consisted
chain and needed of Bingo, Cards, and Bags. Wednesday morning, NSPS YSN held its
to calculate interior spring meeting. Our new president Nolan Mark led this meeting,
angles, leg distanc- and we welcomed Cameron Lowe as Vice President and Spencer
es, and resulting McCutcheon as Secretary. Thirty young surveyors were in atten-
coordinates. The dance from 22 different states! We discussed upcoming events,
level loop between including a Young Surveyors Conference and the Fall meeting (Al-
5 temporary monu- buquerque, New Mexico, October 21-23). Tim Burch stopped in our
ments was judged meeting and spoke of the possibility of including Young Surveyors
on field notes and in the NSPS Day on the Hill campaign and the importance of Young
closing elevation. Surveyors to NSPS’s future.
The triangulation
exercise used the The winners of the competition were announced Wednesday fol-
mini Washington lowing lunch. Dunwoody college of technology placed First in the
Monument as a Associate’s Division, and University of Akron placed first in the
backsight. At the Bachelorette Division. Congratulations to all the Teams for their ef-
same time, set up forts and participation in this year’s competition. Follow NSPS YSN
on two other co- on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more posts and content.
ordinate known
monuments and

The Nevada Traverse Vol.51, No.2, 2024 19