MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS !!! --- FROM AARON RE: 3/28 - 3/30/08

Hello Everyone,

Hope everyone's doing great in classes. We've got a lot of really exciting things happening with the club, and it's time to get things going strong. We have our movie night tomorrow night at Movies 8. The show is at midnight. We need to be there about 11:15 PM.

We also have finally received our order of solar panels. Come out tomorrow and get to check them out.

StuFac day is next wednesday. Be sure to check with Dexter and let him know when you can be at the booth.

Here is a brief list of all the things that will be going on this weekend:

*
Friday 3/28 1:30-5:00:
IMPORTANT
Golf Cart Data Collection and Design
Meet at SM 244 at 1:30 or go out to the mail room. We will be out there until at least 4:00
*
Friday 3/28 11:15 until:
CRITICAL/ ALL HANDS
Movie night at Movies 8 (ALL MEMBERS NEEDED)
*
Saturday Morning:
GOOD FOOD
Go support HP/MESA at the pancake breakfast
*
Saturday Morning:
IMPORTANT
Hydro, Wind, and other power demonstration construction workshop.
Build a real generator!!!
*
Saturday Afternoon:
Come visit TCC's booth at Springtime Tallahassee (not club related)
*
Sunday:
IMPORTANT
Construct temporary mounts for panels and build water balloon launcher for StuFac Day.




There is a lot to be done, and we need everyone's support to make it all happen. If you would like to participate in any of these events or need further information, please contact me by email or call me at 850.251.9955 (Please leave your number if you leave a voice message).



Don't Forget: Next Meeting is April 4, SM260, 2:30



Thank You Everyone,
Aaron Bauldree
Chair - TCC Engineering Club
850.251.9955

Engineering Club's "Cart-toSolar" Project Receives Grant!

Dateline -- Fri. 01/25/2008

During an Engineering Club Budget Planning Meeting late Friday afternoon, word was received that the Club had been awarded a College Innovation Fund Grant for the furtherance of its "Cart-to-Solar" (Golf Cart) Project.

This is tremendously great news! Details will be forthcoming.

DJ.

Tour of New Parking Ramp

I've been a bit slow getting this posted. Members of the Engineering Club toured the new parking ramp after our last meeting on December 7. (Some others from my morning class who could not make the meeting had a shorter tour at 10 AM.) Special thanks to Larry Cliett from the TCC facilities office for giving his time for both tours, and a very special thanks to Jim Folds of Culpeppper Construction who stayed long after the construction work shut down to keep the site open and share lots of interesting information about the work.

Here we see Jim Folds (in the suit) with the afternoon tour group. One tidbit from the tour was that Jim is a dropout from the FSU College of Engineering. He left partway through and is now a project manager. (My opinion, having seen some good and bad projects while working as a surveyor during my college days, is that he is a very good project manager.)



He pointed out lots of details about this construction method and the logistics of it all. The pre-fab concrete pieces are being made in Georgia, near Atlanta, and trucked to Tallahassee. About 20 pieces arrive each day when they are going full speed, ready to be installed the next day after temporary storage off the road to the new North Lot.

One of the ways they are making money and saving TCC money at the same time (we basically are getting a 5 story ramp for the price of 4) is by using thinner pre-fab floor beams and adding the rest of the concrete and reinforcing steel on site. It also helps that construction is in a slump and they got lots of good (low) bids. You can see the construction details very clearly in this view.



And here is the view from the top. The ramp offers a great view of the State Capitol in the distance.



The latest news is that the upper deck will be covered with solar panels that will generate about 750 kW of power while shading the cars on the top level.

I have a lot more pictures from that tour and some earlier ones during the early phases of the project that I will try to organize here next semester.

TCC ENGINEERING CLUB SOLAR PROJECT

As a result of a great deal of preliminary work by club members, a decision was made at the meeting of Sept. 21, 2007, to pursue a project of conversion of a TCC golf cart to solar power. A team was formed, headed by Aaron Bauldree.

The team's first meeting was Sat. Sept. 29. Here is a summary of the meeting, provided by Komlan Amesse.

*******

We met today at 11am at All Saints Cafe. Those present were Komlan Amesse, Ann Wolfgang, Giovanni Meritis, Aaron Bauldree and Ramonn Soto. This meeting is the kickoff of the project. We talked about all the physical constraints we will face and how to get the project done on time. The solar system we going to build is called Solar Assistant System. Aaron set up a forum web ( http://www.tccsolar.freeforums.org ) page where everyone can go and discuss the project. We assigned to ourselves a duty to research on the efficient solar panel to use. We also decided that it will be very nice to find a solar panel that we can display on Oct 03 at the TCC Spirit Day. (Do you know anyone that own solar panel that we can borrow and just display it for the event?) The meeting ended at 12:08.

*******

I encourage everyone to visit the forum.

If you would like to participate in this project, please contact Aaron via the forum. It is very easy to register and log in.

Construction News Flash

You have a hance to see a unique operation this weekend. (Translation: I did survey work on a lot of sewer work back in my youth but I never saw this done.) Starting Thursday (16 August) through Monday (20 August), the contractor is going to do a "pump around" to replace one sanitary sewer line with another while continuously maintaining sewer service to the north end of campus.

They will lay pipe across the parking lot from an upstream manhole near the maintenance building to a downstream one near the student union. They will temporarily block the pipe, pump the sewage across the parking lot, cut the existing pipe, permanently block the abandoned part, test the line, then restore the flow.

My guess is that construction will take place Thursday and Friday with the "pump around" taking place early Saturday when sewage flow will be less than on a work day, but they could do it at any time.

Elsewhere, the foundations for the new bridge to the new parking lot are being poured. It will be a close call if that is cured and ready for the bridge before classes start in a week!

Surveyor Tracks

During college, I worked summers as a "rodman", the third (and least skilled) member of a survey crew in the pre-technology era. [Actually, our company did have one electronic distance measuring system, which was as bulky and heavy as it was expensive. I was on one of the few crews that used it, but that is a different story.] Most of our work was construction surveys, mixed in with some pre-design and residential work. As a result, I can "see" plans on the ground when I see the stakes set out by surveyors, the "tracks" that allow you to follow their work.

Back in March, we toured some of the places related to the construction of the new parking ramp, including the apparent locations of the corners of the building. Construction of the storm sewer, a necessary step before above-ground work can begin, is underway and you can see what is used to do that work in the area west of TPP. You might also check out the almost-complete parking lot NW of the SM building, the survey markers related to the pedestrian bridge that should be built in the next few weeks, and the work starting today on the connection to the electrical system (from TPP to the garage).

The first picture shows a collection of "surveyor tracks" laid out in mid July. The picture was taken between the faculty and student lots to the west of TPP, looking south. The same area is shown in the last picture posted in the March blog, which was taken from the health programs entrance looking west. (Click the photos to see them full size.)

The stake labeled "corner?" is the one that was there when we visited in March. It is no longer there, making me wonder if the stake labeled "new?" is where the corner of the building will actually be located. Time will tell.
The others are all related to the new sanitary sewer being installed across the student parking lot during July. That work was done on a line running south from MH140 (manhole number 140) through the tree in the distance marked "alignment". MH150 is just past that tree (which is no longer there as I write this), with new pipe extending south to a point opposite the Student Union. That tree is in the background of the third picture in the March blog, showing the south side of the building. MH150 is just to the SE of the future SE corner of the building (just as MH140 is to the NE of the NE corner). More on MH130 in the third photo.

This second picture is a closeup of two of the stakes in that area. The tall stake with flagging on it is normally a "guard" to help you locate the actual stake and to give you information about the location. The actual location is marked by the rectangular wooden stake (we called it a "hub") at ground level.

The stake in the right half of this photo is the one you see in the previous photo above. The writing translates as centerline (C/L) of sanitary sewer manhole (SSMH) 140. Some writing is crossed out because either the rodman or crew chief made a mistake that was caught later. The stake on the left is an offset (O/S) stake. It is located 30' from the center of the manhole, and the hub has a known elevation (64.31 feet above sea level). There is also a 15' o/s stake. These are used by the contractor to locate the manhole (and its depth) once the centerline stake has been dug up during construction.

Remark added: The notation used is that a sanitary sewer is SSMH, while a storm sewer is SMH. You have to pay attention. The difference between what is flowing inside them is significant.

This last picture is a view looking west from this same location. You can see that MH130 is off at a diagonal from MH140.
In the distance is MH 120, indicating that the pipe will run along the north edge of the parking ramp toward the small holding pond in the background. There is a stake indicating that MH110 will be right at the edge of the pond. (Later work will expand this pond to bring our stormwater system up to current standards and make up for the part taken up by the new building.)

Update added on 10 August: Talked to the contractor today, and he told me that SSMH110 is where this new sanitary sewer line will intercept the existing sewer line. (That area has now been dug up, and pictures of that area will be blogged separately.) The current sewer line flows along the road, under where the building will be. That would interfere with the foundation, so they are diverting it around the east end of the building.

Final note: The numbers for the manholes go up in steps of 10 so that others could be added in between without having to mess up the sequence or renumber all of them. Our practice (at a company in Michigan) was to number them uphill, but they did the opposite in this case. Pipe is laid working uphill, which is what they did here (starting at the outlet end of the detour, west of the union, and working up towards the intercept point by the stormwater pond).

Report from 16 March meeting

Business:

• Komlan Amesse was elected President-elect for next year.

• Julia Edel is going to chair a group to develop a display for Stu-Fac day

• Khalid Rasul will arrange a tour of the Magnet Lab for later this month.
  

Other:

Before the meeting, Dr. Carr made a short presentation of the site plans for construction of the new parking ramp and the location of temporary parking that will be needed during construction. After the meeting, some of us visited the site to get some "before" pictures.

Click on the picture to see a larger version. (These photos have all been edited to about 600x500 pixels to keep them in the 100 kB range. High quality originals are available if needed.)


This first picture shows part of the group at the location where we expect a new footbridge will be built to allow access to a new parking area to the north of the drainage ditch. We expect a sidewalk and bridge will be here in the near future, and that a parking lot will be cut into the woods before the end of summer.


From there, some of us walked around the outline of the new parking ramp. This picture was taken at what we think will be the north-west corner of the building. Kevin, Doug, George, and Sarah are lined up along the virtual west wall of the ramp.



This picture shows Kevin standing next to the southwest corner of the building (marked with a blue arrow). Kevin is probably where a future sidewalk will be located, and I am taking the photo from a location that will probably be the center of an access road along the south side of the ramp.


The other arrow points to George, who is standing next to the southeast corner of the parking ramp. The new road will run straight down the right side of the photo.


This last photo was taken standing at the entrance to the TPP health programs office, looking west along the north side of the new parking ramp. One blue arrow shows the northeast corner, while the arrow in the distance shows the northwest corner where the first picture was taken. This view will be easy to update as construction proceeds, because the faculty parking lot on the right will not be affected by construction.