5TH IDAHO REGIONAL FUTURE CITY COMPETITION
19 teams from 15 different schools in Idaho and Utah participated in the 5th
Idaho Regional Future City Competition on January 10th at Boise State University
with 13 teams going home with an award. The winning team from Boise that will
represent the Idaho Region at the National Finals in Washington DC during
National Engineers week came from the Idaho Distance Education Academy (IDEA).
IDEA students Gabrielle Boliou, Spencer Boliou, and Addison Williams along with
their teacher Sean Short and their engineer mentor Matt Derr from T-O Engineers
presented their Future City of "New Valley Egypt". Besides taking the top
overall award, their city, New Valley Egypt, also won awards for the Best Model,
Best Sim City Design and Best Creative Transportation Design to Reduce
Emissions. Attached is a photo of their team and model. More competition results
can be found at
http://www.futurecityidaho.org/futurecity_Competition_2009.html.
The Idaho Steering Committee appreciates the hard work and support of the over
90 volunteers from over 28 companies along with all of the sponsors, especially
the Platinum Sponsors of URS Washington Division, Power Engineers, the Boise
State College of Engineering, JUB Engineers, the University of Idaho College of
Engineering, Idaho State University College of Engineering and the SW Chapter of
the Idaho Society of Professional Engineers who donated $2300 along with
sponsoring the award for the City that best protected public health and safety.
A total of 14 Special Awards were given thanks to sponsorship from both
engineering firms and professional and technical organizations. A full list of
these sponsors can be found at
http://www.futurecityidaho.org/futurecity_Sponsors.html.
Work recruiting teams and raising money already began at the Future City
Regional Competition and as a result 16 schools are already signed up for next
year, which is more than 9 months in advance of the start of the program! The
continued support of ISPE and its Chapters is much appreciated by the Idaho
Steering Committee including Julie Wall's help and coordination with donations.
Please visit
http://www.futurecityidaho.org/futurecity_Contact.html or contact any of the
Idaho Future City Steering Committee members about getting involved next year!
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
Volunteers from all engineering disciplines are needed to interview Boise State
Students for the 2009 Outstanding Engineering Student Awards. Volunteers will
make the selection of the outstanding student in each of the four disciplines
(CE, ME, EE, and Material Science) at Boise State. The time commitment will be
one evening for approximately 3 hours in early February. The interviews will
take place at Boise State University. All student nominees will be honored at
the Engineers Week Banquet. If you would like to volunteer please e-mail Heather
Carroll at
Heather.Carroll@hdrinc.com.
The Idaho Transportation Department would like to announce the inclusion of
4 new award categories recognizing achievement in
individual excellence in addition to the 5 categories focusing on
excellence in transportation projects.
New Individual Categories:
Existing Project-Related Categories:
• Engineer of the Year
• Construction
• Professional of the Year
• Environmental Stewardship
• ITD Career Achievement Award
• Maintenance and Operations
• Business/Organization of the Year
• Public Participation
• Transportation Planning
For additional information on eligibility and criteria as well as to download
the award application, please visit our Awards Website at
http://www.itd.idaho.gov/excellence.award/
Applications must be received by the ITD Awards Coordinator by
Feb 27, 2009 by 4:00 p.m.
An Awards Banquet will be held at the Boise Centre on the Grove on
April 7, 2009 from 6-8 p.m.
For any questions or comments regarding the application process or the
Excellence in Transportation Awards in general, please contact the ITD Awards
Coordinator, Erika Stoddard at 208-334-8552 or
erika.stoddard@itd.idaho.gov.
ISPE SINCERELY APPRECIATES THE SUPPORT OF ALL OF OUR
CURRENT 2008 - 2009 SUSTAINING
ORGANIZATIONS:
AHJ Engineers PC
B & A
Engineers, Inc
Briggs Engineering,
Inc
Elkhorn Engineers
G & S
Structural Engineers
J.M. Miller
Engineering Inc
J-U-B
Engineers, Inc
Land
Solutions, Land Surveying & Consulting
Mason &
Stanfield Inc
Materials
Testing & Inspection Inc
MWH
Progressive
Engineering Group Inc
Quadrant
Consulting, Inc
Riedesel
Engineering Inc
Schiess &
Associates
Smarter
Process Inc
Stapley
Engineering
Terracon
TerraGraphics
Environmental Engineers Inc
Walker
Engineering
Please consider joining these great companies in
becoming an
ISPE Sustaining Organization. ISPE offers the Sustaining
Organization category of membership to enhance the visibility of your commitment
to ISPE and the engineering profession. Your membership will allow us to better
serve the engineering community through promoting engineering and ethics, and
supporting the needs of the engineer including professional development.
If you are interested in becoming a
Sustaining Organization, please
contact the ISPE office at
ispe@idahospe.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!
The Inauguration
Marney did a Google search on “Obama Inauguration” and it produced 34,800,000
hits in 0.06 seconds. At this same rate, how many hits would be produced in 1
second. Express your answer in scientific notation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interest in tickets to the 2009 Inauguration was so high that one ticket broker
asked $20,095 for a single ticket. The government printed a quarter of a million
tickets, intended to be freely given. If all were given to individuals, one
apiece, and 0.1% of those who received these free tickets sold them for an
average of $20,000 each, how much money would they have generated?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The longest inaugural speech was given by Henry Harrison in 1841; it was 8445
words. He spoke for 1 hour and 45 minutes, without a hat or a coat, in a snow
storm. (He caught pneumonia and passed away one month later.) The shortest
speech was George Washington’s second inaugural address, which was only 135
words. Obama’s speech fell somewhere in the middle, at 18 minutes 20 seconds and
2401 words. What is the positive difference between the rate at which Obama
spoke and the rate at which Harrison spoke? Express your answer in words per
minute, as a decimal to the nearest tenth.
Answer to the last MATHCOUNTS problem:
From the rookie year to the second year the $75,000 raise represents a
[(75,000/295,000)(100)] = 25.4237%. From the second year to the third year the
$75,000 raise represents a [(75,000/370,000)(100)] = 20.2703%. Thus the
difference between the percent raise is 25.4237% – 20.2703% = 5.2%, to the
nearest tenth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since there are 16 teams in each conference there are “16 choose
2” possible pairs per conference.
16 choose 2 —›(16!)/[(2!)(14!)]
= 120 possible pairs.
Each of those 120 combinations in one conference has an equal
chance of being paired with each of the 120 pairs from the other conference.
Thus, there are (120)(120) = 14,400 possible sets of 4 teams. She selected one
combination so the probability is 1/14,400.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This can be solved by making an organized list. Keep in mind that
the possible points earned for one play are 6 + 1 = 7, 6 + 2 = 8, 3 and 2.
8, 3
7, 2, 2
3, 3, 3, 2
3, 2, 2, 2, 2
Thus, there are 4 possible scoring combinations that would result
in 11 points.
**There are several good extensions for this problem. For
example, examine what happens when the requirement of bonus points is removed or
examine other point totals.**
If you want to see the problem again, click
http://mathcounts.org/Page.aspx?pid=1412
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
