2019 DAY 2: Surveying, Cost Estimating, and Site Excavation
After completing the first day, campers were prepared to begin the construction of the basketball court. Throughout the day they would learn about the exciting job of surveying, estimate costs and assemble a mock “bid” for the court, and help prepare the court for the next step, concrete.
Campers queuing to look through a Robotic total Station provided for demo by Landesign.
Surveying is the process of making all the measurements essential to starting any construction project. Through measuring distances and elevations, surveyors effectively make a map of the jobsite that dictates to the construction crew how to appropriately level or fill the area before proceeding with the job. Understanding contours lines and topographic maps is a must for this job, so the camp started with a brief review of what we learned about topography on Monday.
At 10 a seasoned crew of surveyors, RangerACE Pro Kenneth Popham as well as a team of surveyors from Landesign, arrived to introduce campers to the art of surveying. After a quick presentation by Landesign about a career in surveying as well as its history, campers got to try out a flurry of expensive surveying equipment. Campers then transitioned to helping Landesign and Popham in measuring and laying out wooden stakes around the site with information on how to excavate the site.
Before lunch there were still a few necessary steps to be done before a team came in the afternoon to install concrete forms around where concrete would be poured on Wednesday.
Two campers assisting in the silt fence installation.
To cool down for a moment, campers headed inside where instructors lead a discussion on environmental protection, a very important consideration for any construction crew. Right after, campers were able to see take part in some environmental protection as a team from BMP Specialist came to install a silt fence around a large tree adjacent to where the court would be.
With setup complete, campers were introduced to one of the business sides of construction after lunch by RangerACE Pros Mark McKenzie and Nathan Ziehr.
In order to get the contract for a construction project, a construction company must submit a sealed bid containing the total amount of money they will need to do the project. To get this number, as McKenzie and Ziehr explained to the campers, you have to factor in transportation, material costs, profit margins, and even what number other companies might be submitting.
Profit margins and competition aside, the teams of campers were now tasked with coming up with as accurate of a bid as they could for the actual projects that they were doing that week. Through the assistance of cost sheets, maps, and our RangerACE Pros, campers were able to work towards a final cost estimation, competing against all the other teams to see who would “win the contract”.
Mark McKenzie, CEO of Ranger Excavating, posing for a photo with the team that won the bid competition.
The second day of camp wrapped up with campers observing a team from GADCO installing wooden concrete forms to prepare for the concrete pour happening tomorrow. Each team was also given time to update their presentation board to include their bids.