Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 12/02/05
UPCOMING EVENTS:
• January 17, 2006 –
ISPE Southwest Chapter
Noon Meeting - 12:00 Noon - Washington Group International Training Room -
Tamarack Resort – Nick Stover
• January 20 - 23, 2006 - NSPE
Winter Meeting - Washington DC
• February 4, 2006 – ISPE
Northern Chapter (Lewiston) MATHCOUNTS Competition
• February 4, 2006 – ISPE
Southeast Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition
• February 11, 2006 – ISPE
Southwest Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition
• March 11, 2006 – State
MATHCOUNTS Competition – Boise State University - Boise
• March 16 - 17, 2006 - ISPE
Annual Meeting - Boise, ID
• July 6 - 11, 2006 - NSPE Summer
Meeting - Boston, MA
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN BOISE
Aerotek Engineering is actively searching for quality candidates in the area for
the following positions:
PROJECT SURVEYOR:
We are currently looking for a talented project surveyor to join our team. Ideal
candidate will have a Idaho PLS with at least 5 years of land development and
transportation experience. Additionally, experience with business development is
a must. Candidate will have residential, commercial, industrial, transportation
or other land use types experience.
This individual will coordinate and manage projects with clients, as well as
supervise research, computation, field work and drafting. He or she will also be
responsible for stamping and signing surveys. Additional duties include
performing calculations on various projects, utilizing AutoCAD, as well as
preparing topographical maps, subdivision plans, and legal descriptions.
Location: Boise, Idaho
Skills: Inroads, AutoCAD, LDD, SoftDesk 8.0 and other Microsoft Applications are
desirable.
Pay: $65-75k depending on experience.
PROJECT MANAGER FOR LAND DEVELOPMENT:
We are currently looking for a qualified Professional Engineer with a minimum of
5 years experience in civil design and development issues to join our team. This
candidate will have a B.S in civil engineering and must possess proven project
leadership skills and excellent communication. Prior experience with business
developments is also required.
This individual will work within civil design and development issues such as
grading, storm water management, utility design, and the design of other
horizontal elements. This individual must have local knowledge of permitting
requirements and potential mitigation actions and measures. Prior specialization
in residential, commercial industrial or other land use types is beneficial.
Location: Boise, Idaho
Skills: Intergraph, AutoCAD, SoftDesk 8.0, and other Microsoft Applications are
desirable
Pay: $65-80k depending on experience
For additional information please contact Jake Reynolds, Aerotek, 503-291-4200
or email - jreynold@aerotek.com.
C2Ed
www.c2ed.com
NSPE's online education partner, the Center for Collaboration in Education and
Design, C2Ed, provides the highest quality, state of the art continuing
education courses for design professionals online, 24 hours a day, seven days a
week.
Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief
NSPE continues to provide resources for this effort.
• Relief Fund Details
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Preparations for 2006
Though 2006 is a month or so away, there are a couple of things we might want to
start looking into now...
Noah is starting now to work on his budget for 2006. One thing that he is taking
into consideration is the IRS’ decision to raise its maximum limit to $15,000
for 401(k) contributions. Noah decides that he would like to make this maximum
contribution in 2006. This is money that will be taken out of his paychecks. He
would like the same amount of money taken from each of his paychecks throughout
the year. Noah is paid on the 15th day and last day of every month. In order to
develop his budget for 2006, it will be helpful to figure out how much money
will be taken out of each paycheck for his 401(k) contribution. How much will
that amount be in order to total $15,000 at the end of the year?
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Gia is realizing that she already is scheduling appointments for 2006 and needs
to get a 2006 calendar. Instead of buying a calendar with all of the months and
dates pre-printed, she decides to create her own calendar pages from a calendar
template. The template has a space at the top to write the name of the month,
and the name of the corresponding day is written above each of the seven columns
of empty squares (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, …, Saturday.). On each page there are
five rows of these empty squares; there are no numbers written on the page for
any dates. Gia will write those numbers in herself. She figures these 35 empty
squares are more than enough for each page since no month has more than 31 days.
She will be able to use one square for every day of every month and will have at
least 4 empty squares left over each month. As she starts creating her calendar
pages for January, February, March, etc. she realizes that there are months when
not every day can have its own square. She would need to have six rows of
squares on every page in order for that to be the case. On what day(s) of the
week would such a 31-day month start (a 31-day month that would require six rows
of squares in order for every day to have its own square)?
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Carter just received an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party and is stunned to
realize that 2005 is almost over! While trying to think about what his New
Year’s resolutions for 2006 will be, he remembers that he had made a New Year’s
resolution to do more reading for enjoyment during 2005. He had promised himself
he would read an average of one book every two weeks (knowing there are 52 weeks
in a year). In order to meet that goal, he would have to read at a pace of one
book every five days for the remaining 35 days of 2005. This could be tough,
since according to this information, he’s only been averaging one book every x
days during 2005 to this point. What is the value of x, expressed to the nearest
whole number?
Answer to last week’s MATHCOUNTS problem:
Some strategic Guess & Check will get us to the answer, or we can try to set up
an equation. We know that in x years, the ages will be 18 + x and 51 + x. We
also know that at that time we want to be able to double Sessions’ age and have
it be equal to Ingles’ age, so this can be represented as 2(18 + x) = 51 + x.
Using the distributive property, we get 36 + 2x = 51 + x. Now we subtract x and
36 from both sides of the equation to have x = 15. In 15 years, their ages will
go from 18 and 51 to 33 and 66, and we can see that Ingles’ age is double that
of Sessions’.
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We are told that there were a total of 732 + 668 = 1400 votes. Sessions received
732 of these votes, which is 732 ¸ 1400 = 52.3%, to the nearest tenth.
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The actual ratio is 732:668, and we can see that 732 and 668 are not consecutive
integers; their difference is 732 – 668 = 64. If we reduce the ratio by dividing
both values by 2, we have the ratio 366:334, and these values only have a
difference of 32. It seems that the smaller we can make these two numbers, the
closer we are to having consecutive integers. We can again divide by 2 to get
183:167. At this point, we really can’t reduce it any further and still have
integers, since 183 and 167 are relatively prime. However, dividing by 10 gets
us to 18.3 to 16.7, so maybe our answer is close to 18/17? Or if we divide by 2
again we have 9.15 to 8.35, so maybe it’s close to 9/8? If we’re relying on this
trial and error, it’s probably time to start looking at the values of these
ratios. We can write 732 to 668 or 732:668 or 732/668. This last representation
is something that we can use to get a decimal approximation of 1.095808. Take a
look at the decimal representations of 18/17 and 9/8 and other ratios in that
area. You will find that the ratio 11/10 (or 11:10) has the closest value to
732:668. Our answer is then 11 + 10 = 21.
We can also get to this answer with some algebra. If we allow our consecutive
integers a and b to be x and x – 1 (notice that a must be larger than b), we can
set up the following equation: 732/668 = x/(x – 1). Using our cross-products we
see 668x = 732x – 732. Subtracting 732x from both sides and then dividing by
–64, we see that x = 11.4375. Remember, though, that x must be an integer. (The
question suggested that we wouldn’t get an exact match; rather, we are trying to
find the ratio with a value closest to 732:668.) So we should try x = 11 and x =
12. This means we are testing 11/10 and 12/11. Again, 11/10 or 11:10 is the
closest, and 11 + 10 = 21.
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If he is making $250 per month, he will make $500 after the second month, which
isn’t enough, and then $750 at the end of the third month. It will take three
months just to make back the money that he used to run his campaign.
If you want to see last week's problem again, click
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=756&z=104
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
PO Box 170239
Boise, ID 83717-0239
208-426-0636
Fax: 208-426-0639
E-Mail: ispe@rmci.net
Web Site: www.Idahospe.org
Idaho
Society of Professional Engineers
