Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 01/13/06
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 1, 2006
ISPE Awards Nomination
Deadline
February 4, 2006 ISPE
Northern Chapter (Lewiston) MATHCOUNTS Competition
February 4, 2006 ISPE
Southeast Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition
February 7, 2006 ISPE Magic
Valley Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition
February 11, 2006 ISPE
Southwest Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition
February 14, 2006 ISPE
Northern Chapter (Coeur dAlene) MATHCOUNTS Competition
February 19 -25, 2006
National Engineers Week
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
CALL FOR ISPE AWARD NOMINATIONS
Each year ISPE selects outstanding Idahoans in recognition of their engineering
accomplishments and contributions to the engineering profession. Awards will be
presented during the 2006 Annual Meeting in Boise. Nominations must be submitted
no later than February 1, 2006. Award criteria and nomination forms can
be obtained from the ISPE web
site, or by contacting the ISPE office at 208-426-0636.
The awards for which we are looking for nominees include:
Idaho Engineering Hall of Fame: Given by ISPE to recognize Idahoans that
have made engineering contributions beyond Idaho i.e. nationally or world wide.
Idaho Excellence in Engineering Award: To recognize an Idahoan who is
distinguishing themselves in engineering.
Idaho Excellence in Engineering Educator Award: This award recognizes an
Engineering Educator who has had a significant impact on the engineering
profession in Idaho.
Young Engineer of the Year Award: To recognize an engineer that is making
a contribution to their profession. Must be no more than 35 years old.
Self nominations are welcomed and encouraged.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunities Abound with
Local Civil Engineering Consulting Firm. Doherty & Associates is seeking a
civil engineer, with an EIT and/or PE licensure, to fulfill a full-time position
to assist with design of various transportation improvement projects. Work tasks
will include design and production of roadway construction plans and airport
planning documents, preparation of technical specifications and cost estimates,
public involvement activities, and may include construction inspection.
Applicants will also be exposed to varied business development activities such
as proposal production and client contacts. Interested candidates can view
employment opportunities and find application requirements at
www.dohertyeng.com. Doherty & Associates
is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
NSPE What is a PE? Campaign
The What is a PE? campaign has been developed to educate state and federal
legislators, as well as the media, on what a professional engineer is, what a
professional engineer does, the difference between a PE and an engineer, and how
professional engineers help the public. It has been designed to provide
materials and resources to help NSPE members promote the importance of
professional engineers in everyday life.
More information about professional engineers or licensure is
available here
For questions about the campaign,
please contact Cheryl Napoli at
cnapoli@nspe.org or Stacey Ober at
sober@nspe.org.
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Olympic Hopeful Continues To Wait
Though Michelle Kwan had to withdraw from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships
due to an injury, there is still the hope that the U.S. federation will give her
a spot on the Olympic team. Michelles doctor believes she will be performing at
100% of her usual ability in time for the Olympics. Kwan has until January 16 to
prove to the federation that this is true. Lets assume Kwan was able to perform
at 40% of her usual ability on January 4 and must reach 100% by January 16. If
she gains 1% of her usual ability back each day, she would be at 41% on Jan. 5,
42% on Jan. 6, 43% on Jan. 7, and only 52% on Jan. 16. Obviously 1% is not
enough! If her improvement is a constant increment each day, what is the minimum
percent of her usual ability she must gain back each day?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The injury Kwan is suffering from has a huge impact on her ability to jump and
spin. Both of these things are critical in routines. Suppose Kwan is to start a
spin facing north and spins 5670 degrees in a counter-clockwise direction. What
direction would she then be facing at the end of the spin?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though jumping is also a critical part of routines, it is almost universally
believed that Kwans most valuable skill is her artistry. Her skating has won
her a silver medal at the 1998 Olympics and a bronze medal is the 2002 Olympics.
Its a pretty good guess that she is hoping for gold in 2006 to finish out her
collection of medals! This would mean that after three consecutive Olympics she
would receive one of each of the medals. The order would be silver, bronze,
gold. How many total orders are possible to win one of each of the medals in
three consecutive Olympics? Silver, bronze, gold is one order.
Answer to last weeks MATHCOUNTS problem:
Each of the four sides of a square is the same length. So if one side is s
inches, then the perimeter is 4s inches. If 4s = 2006, dividing both sides by 4
shows that s = 501.5 inches. The area of the square is A = s2, so A = (501.5)2 =
251,502.25 square inches.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since we are considering the first 2006 positive integers, we can divide this in
half and see that there are the first 1003 and then the second 1003, with no
integer right in the middle. The median is then the average of the two
middle-most terms, which would be the 1003rd and 1004th terms, or 1003 and 1004.
The average of these two values is 1003.5.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can see that the terms are increasing by four each time. If we continue the
pattern, we see the sequence is 7, 3, 1, 5, 9, 13,
and each term is one
greater than a multiple of 4. (Notice that starting with 1, we can consider that
we need to add 4x to get as close to 2006 as we can, and 4x + 1 will always be
one greater than a multiple of 4.) Knowing our divisibility rules for 4, we know
2004 is divisible by 4 (since 04 is divisible by 4). This means 2005 would be a
term in the sequence. We want the first term greater than 2006, so adding four
to 2005 gets us to our answer of 2009.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can divide 2006 by 24 and see that there are 83.583 full days in 2006 hours.
This tells us that in 83 full days it will again be noon, then we will have
0.583 (or a little over half) of a day left, which will put us a little after
midnight. Multiplying, we can see that these 83 days used up 83 ΄ 24 = 1992 of
the 2006 hours, so there are 2006 1992 = 14 hours left. Twelve of these hours
get us to the midnight time we already determined, and then we see that there
are two additional hours. This puts our time at 2:00 a.m.
If you want to see last week's problem again, click
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=782&z=107
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
