PLEASE NOTE ISPE HAS A NEW
EMAIL ADDRESS: ispe@idahospe.org. PLEASE
UPDATE YOUR RECORDS WITH THIS NEW ADDRESS. THANK YOU!
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 02/17/06
UPCOMING EVENTS:
• February 19 -25, 2006 – National Engineers
Week
• February 21, 2006 –
ISPE Southwest Chapter EWeek
Luncheon – Doubletree Riverside, Boise
• February 24, 2006 -
ISPE Southeast
Chapter National Engineers Week Banquet, Red Lion, Pocatello
• 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
Future City Volunteers Needed for March 4th Science Olympiad
After a successful 2nd Idaho Regional Competition at BSU in January we
are trying to get a jump start on the 2006-2007 Future City school recruitment.
Our first school recruitment opportunity will be on March 4th at Northwest
Nazarene University during the Idaho Science Olympiad Competition. The event is
being held from 7:30-4 on the NNU Campus and we will have a table setup at the
Johnson Sports Center. We are looking for volunteers to man the table for just a
couple hours throughout the day (after all it is Saturday) with 4 different time
blocks to choose from (7:30-9:30, 9:30-11:30, 11:30-1:30 and 1:30 to 4). Please
contact Lynn Olson at 323-1578 ext 255 or
lolson@toengrco.com if interested. Thanks!
Most lucrative college degrees
In survey of the Class of 2006, engineers still get top salary offers…..read
more
Salary Survey Offers Incentive for Participants
It’s easy to participate in the
NSPE
salary survey! And if you do so by March 31, you could win an iPod Nano or
one of several gift certificates to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com.
Need another great reason to participate? If you’re an engineer in job
transition, preparing for an annual salary review, or just curious if your
company is paying comparable salaries, then it’s important to find out what
you’re worth. For over 50 years, NSPE has been providing engineering salary and
trend data to engineers, employers, and the media. Your participation in the
survey is vital to ensure the information is accurate and up-to-date.
Still not convinced? You’ll also receive a complimentary salary report for your
specific level of expertise and geographic area when you fill out the survey.
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Amateurs Beat The Pros
Last week the Grammy Awards went up against American Idol on television. From 8
to 9 p.m., 28.3 million people watched American Idol while 15.1 million people
watched the Grammy Awards. During that hour, the Grammy Awards tried to capture
the television audience by featuring Madonna, John Legend, Coldplay and U2. If
you were scheduling these four performers and wanted to be sure that Madonna and
John Legend did not perform consecutively, in how many different orders could
you arrange the four performers?
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Though there were only 15.1 million people watching the Grammy Awards during the
8 to 9 p.m. hour, the show averaged 17.6 million viewers from 8 to 11 p.m. If
that average is calculated by averaging the viewership numbers of each of the
three non-overlapping one-hour periods during that time, what was the average
number of viewers from 9 to 11 p.m.?
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Last year the number of viewers for the Grammy Awards show was 18.8 million, and
this year the final average is expected to stay right around 17.6 million. (The
numbers for the complete show that lasted until 11:30 p.m. were not available at
this time.) What was the percent decrease in the number of viewers from 2005 to
2006? Express your answer to the nearest tenth.
Answer to last week’s MATHCOUNTS problem:
The 40-minute time limit is equivalent to 40 ´ 60 = 2400 seconds. Dividing this
time equally among the 30 questions yields 2400 ¸ 30 = 80 seconds per question.
This is one minute (60 seconds) and 20 seconds, or 1:20.
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We can first figure out when 25% of the students is equal to 10 students. Let x
be the number of students in the competition. Then we are solving 0.25x = 10 or
(1/4)x = 10. Multiplying both sides by 4 (or dividing both sides by 0.25) tells
us x = 40. Now we know that if there are 40 students at the competition, taking
the top 25% or the top 10 will both result in 10 students participating in the
Countdown Round. Now, it’s true that 0.25(39) < 10, but 0.25(39) = 9.75, which
is still 10 students when rounded to the nearest whole number. We can also see
that 0.25(38) = 9.5, which is again 10 when rounded to the nearest whole number.
It’s not until our total number of students at the competition reaches 37 that
the number of students when taking the top 25% (or 9 students, to the nearest
whole number) is fewer students than if we take the top 10 students.
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We could try to list them all out or we could use the Counting Principle. We
know there are four pairs of questions, she answered four questions correctly,
and she answered one question correctly in each pair of questions. That means
that in the first pair of questions, there are two options. She either got #1 or
#2 correct. When considering the second pair of questions, she either got #3 or
#4 correct, and what she did on the first pair has no bearing on the second
pair. So there were two options for the first pair and two options for the
second pair, which makes a total of 2 ´ 2 = 4 combinations so far (#1 and 3, #1
and 4, #2 and 3, #2 and 4). Now the third pair of questions has two options,
again neither of which is dependent on what happened with the first two pairs of
questions. So now we’re up to 2 ´ 2 ´ 2 = 8 combinations. (You can see that we
can take the four combinations listed above, and add #5 to each of them and then
we can take the four combinations listed above and add #6 to each of them, thus
doubling the total number of combinations.) Finally, we have our fourth pair of
questions which gives us another two options. We now have a total of 2 ´ 2 ´ 2 ´
2 = 16 possible combinations of questions our competitor could have answered
correctly if she answered exactly four questions correctly with one correct
answer in each pair
If you want to see last week's problem again, click
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=795&z=107
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
PO Box 170239
Boise, ID 83717-0239
208-426-0636
Fax: 208-426-0639
E-Mail: ispe@idahospe.org
Web Site: www.Idahospe.org
Idaho
Society of Professional Engineers
