Civil engineering career thread

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Lenardo

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hp48gx ftw.... one of our associates does side survey work and has his own equipment, he STILL uses an HP48gx with a ram card and tds survey gx card for data collection. we use a "Recon" with survey pro for data collection, once this one breaks/wears out we will have to upgrade to something new since they no longer make the recon.

btw the test agency has a list of what calculators you CAN bring to the test, all others are banned.

ncees calculators approved for the 2017 testing year:

the hp calculators have a program function and enough memory that you can install a shit ton of cogo equations into them...(or buy a calculator with them installed already for 450....)

  • Casio: All fx-115 and fx-991 models (Any Casio calculator must have “fx-115” or “fx-991” in its model name.)
  • Hewlett Packard: The HP 33s and HP 35s models, but no others
  • Texas Instruments: All TI-30X and TI-36X models (Any Texas Instruments calculator must have “TI-30X” or “TI-36X” in its model name.)
 
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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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hp48gx ftw.... one of our associates does side survey work and has his own equipment, he STILL uses an HP48gx with a ram card and tds survey gx card for data collection. we use a "Recon" with survey pro for data collection, once this one breaks/wears out we will have to upgrade to something new since they no longer make the recon.

btw the test agency has a list of what calculators you CAN bring to the test, all others are banned.

ncees calculators approved for the 2017 testing year:

the hp calculators have a program function and enough memory that you can install a shit ton of cogo equations into them...(or buy a calculator with them installed already for 450....)

  • Casio: All fx-115 and fx-991 models (Any Casio calculator must have “fx-115” or “fx-991” in its model name.)
  • Hewlett Packard: The HP 33s and HP 35s models, but no others
  • Texas Instruments: All TI-30X and TI-36X models (Any Texas Instruments calculator must have “TI-30X” or “TI-36X” in its model name.)

This is why i still only use an fx115es to this day.


That and I hardly do any calculations.
 

BrutulTM

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So I have a dumb question for you guys. We are building a deck on my brother's house that is going to be steel structure and a concrete pan deck. It's 10 feet wide and runs the full length of the house and it's about 9 feet off the ground (house has a walk-out basement). The front of the deck is being held up by 5 vertical posts made from 4" drill stem and then a beam the full length of the house made from 4" x 8" by .250 square tubing. The back side is sitting on a piece of 4" angle iron that is bolted to the house. The house is made from insulated concrete forms so it's bolted right into the concrete wall.

This was designed by my cousin who is a civil engineer so I don't doubt that it's legit, but it just seems odd to me that it has this giant beam across the front and only a piece of angle iron in the back. Anybody want to take a shot at explaining why that is to me?
 

Jackie Treehorn

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I have that Van Sickle book too, paid $120 for it on E-bay years back. I just picked it up for the first time in forever this week.

We used an HP48 for data collection back in the early 2000s. It's actually pretty damn intuitive. My dad has / had Recons in the past too.
 
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Picasso3

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So I have a dumb question for you guys. We are building a deck on my brother's house that is going to be steel structure and a concrete pan deck. It's 10 feet wide and runs the full length of the house and it's about 9 feet off the ground (house has a walk-out basement). The front of the deck is being held up by 5 vertical posts made from 4" drill stem and then a beam the full length of the house made from 4" x 8" by .250 square tubing. The back side is sitting on a piece of 4" angle iron that is bolted to the house. The house is made from insulated concrete forms so it's bolted right into the concrete wall.

This was designed by my cousin who is a civil engineer so I don't doubt that it's legit, but it just seems odd to me that it has this giant beam across the front and only a piece of angle iron in the back. Anybody want to take a shot at explaining why that is to me?

I'd guess the Angle doesn't have a span, it'll be bolted every 18 inches or so prob.
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yeah, that's correct. I guess that makes sense, each bolt only has to hold up a little strip of the deck where the supports in front are 12 feet apart.
 

Lenardo

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ya the angle iron load is split every 16-18-24 (depending on the spread you used) inches -basically working as the ledger board if it was wood... should be fine....
 

Lenardo

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t minus 2 days until testing... for the professional land surveyors certification.

thursday 8am i have to be in cambridge for the federal 6 hr test
friday 7:15am i have to be @umass boston for the state 2hr test...

did the practice test for the federal- got a 78 without me studying anything. almost every single question i got wrong had to do with state plane coordinates, alta plans or gps... had one line by agreement question that- for MY STATE- i answered correctly, but for most of the country my answer was right, just not "complete".

MA is NOT on the grid system, there are no sections or corners or etc like most of the rest of the country, it is all hodge podge. heck i just got a deed for a new project and the dimensions were in rods and links(deed is WRONG by over 100 feet, but still rods and links)...

my state -until recently- has pretty much had nothing tied into the state plane coordinate system, except for highway layouts. now some towns are requiring new plans submitted have a state plane coordinate on a bound-- i use google earth get the coord for the spot i want, convert to state plane label it-close enough.

PERSONALLY, neither my company nor i have EVER used GPS for anything survey related. probably should start, but see the above reasoning, and like 99% of our jobs it is pretty much no chance that it is tied into the state plane coordinate system, and the nearest benchmark is probably ~2+ miles away, so completely useless for the job at hand. we Have started using drones for topo and asbuilt shots, but even then we take the data export it and usually assign it into a random coordinate system just for that particular job.
 

Lenardo

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Ncees principles and practice of land surveying test done. 100 questions to be answered within 6hr(with hr break in between halves), closed book.. started test at about 830am , finished the first half in about 90 minutes(including a review of every question) had option for a 55 minute lunch break, skipped it (was not thirsty nor having to use the facilities) finished 2nd half in about 90 minutes reviewed test, hit finished, was on the way home by 1140am. Think I did good. Find out in a week if I passed (it is a pass/fail grade)

Tomorrow I have the state test.

Have to be at UMass boston campus center ballroom by 715 am 2 hr open book test. Figure I have to leave ~545am to make it on time.
 
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Lenardo

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Got the results from the NCEES Federal Test---Pass.

Waiting on the State results. State test had only 2 people taking the PLS test- there were ABOUT 100 people Taking the various engineering tests there
 
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Lenardo

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i had bought the hp35 calculator and bought easycogo for the hp35, programmed it manually...and...never needed one cogo program for either of the tests...

still nothing from the state yet i am checking the site daily at work to see if my status has changed from "results pending"....my coworker who got his pls in 95, it took him 3 months before he was notified.

i mean 2 freaking people took the test, how long does it take to grade 2 tests.
 

Bandwagon

Kolohe
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I've been to 3 civil engineering events in the last month. One was yesterday with the firm I work for.

Y'all are fucking crazy. I'm 20 years younger than most of these people and I can't keep up when they party.
 

Lenardo

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We are not crazy, just, nuts....and we know how to have fun.

Me? I am a homebody, but know my stuff.
 

Lenardo

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NICE NICE.... just be yourself.

still Nothing from the State .....grumble...took our other pls- back 15ish years ago- 2 months to get notified he passed......
 

Lenardo

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One month update. Still nothing from the state... the other PLS in my company who took the test 15 ish years ago said it took him 3 months to get the results. To me that is completely unacceptable in this day and age of technology and information transfer. Even grading by hand it should take no more than a day to grade, 3 days to mail the result. Email and computer scanning means, 3 hrs tops. I have emailed the test coordinator at the testing facility, askjng wtf is taking so long, still no reply. Will call them on monday.
 

Dandai

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Probably apples to oranges, but it took about 6 weeks for me to get results back on my Certified Information Systems Auditor test a couple years ago. The reason they gave was because it's a global test and they go through a few different processes to verify no cheating or collusion occurred.