Thursday, October 29, 2009

New Bridge at Hoover Dam
























































* 900 feet above the Colorado River .
* The bridge will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona .
* The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on- site.
* Structural members are being lifted into place using a high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons.
* The bridge is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan .
* Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.
* The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco . * The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead , is 112 miles long and took six years to fill. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States
* The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level. The lake is currently at 43 percent of its capacity.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest

See the email below. Sounds like fun. Anyone up for some extracurricular bridge building?

From: Seattle ASCE YMF [mailto:seattle.asce.ymf@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 10:04 PM

To: ACE MentorSubject: 15th Annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition

The Younger Member Forum of the American Society of Civil Engineers (Seattle Section) invites you to our 15th Annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition. The competition will be held on February 13th, 2010 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Please find the attach flyer and feel free to print it out and hang it in your classrooms or forward it to any one else who may be interested.

Three teams of up to four students may be sent to represent their high school in this competition. Last year, the strongest qualifying bridge held 993 pounds consisting of only popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue!! We encourage all types of bridges to come out to the competition (as long as they comply to our set of rules). As incentive, we give all participants a free competition t-shirt, a free pass to the Museum of Flight and a certificate for participation. Additionally, we give out all kinds of prizes for excellence in bridge building such as iPod shuffles, North Face backpacks, Mariner's tickets, graphing calculators and many more.

We will also be having a Poster Competition again this year and a $500 scholarship opportunity for high school seniors!!

Please let us know if you're interested by replying to this email and providing the following information:
School Name
Team Advisor/School Contact Info
Contact Phone
Contact Email

We will let you know when the rules become finalized, rule clarifications, and anything else that comes up. We will send the popsicle sticks to you for free, and if interested, we may be able to send a young practicing engineer to your school to make a short presentation about the competition and offer their experience on how to pursue a career in engineering. We look forward to seeing you at the competition in February!

Seattle ASCE YMFhttp://www.seattleasce.org/ymf/popsiclebridge.html

Monday, October 19, 2009

Hello

I couldn't put setting up this blog off any longer. I'm looking forward to using this tool. I'll post rather than email whenever possible for maximum transparency and minimum repitition.

Two administrative updates from ACE administrators Dan Nelson and Angela Gottula:

1. This years it's snacks instead of dinners.
"I know everyone is tightening their belts this year and so want to suggest that all teams scale down the food offered to the kids. Most of the teams meet from 4-6 and if we provide a light snack (crackers, cookies, drinks) this would be enough to keep the kids somewhat full till their own dinner."

2. A student would like to shadow an engineer.
"The career counselor at Edmonds Woodway has a student who needs (for some requirement) to do a job shadow. He is interested in engineering -- any type. Can you forward to your engineering mentors and find out if someone would be willing to do this for 20 hours between now and the end of the school year? I don't know the end date, but I do know it's not 20 hours all at once." If interested contact:
Angela L. Gottula
agottula@mka.com
Magnusson Klemencic Associates
D: 206-215-8344, T: 206-292-1200