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Washington DC Survey Competition

Our own Jenni Light (Lewiston office), who also teaches at Lewis-Clark State College, led students in the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) survey competition in DC March 30 & 31, 2022. The competition was held in conjunction with the spring NSPS meeting. The competition theme was “how far our profession has come” and included field exercises using traditional equipment – fixed wooden leg tripods, bearing compass, theodolites, and chains and a survey monument scavenger hunt. This was Lewis-Clark State College’s first time at this competition, and they came away with second place!

The monument scavenger hunt included several fascinating historical survey markers including several stone markers from as early as 1792 along the DC boundary. The following day included a traverse using a bearing compass and chains, a level loop using stadia, and triangulation using two known benchmarks on the National Mall and the Washington Monument to locate the stone marker for Jefferson’s effort to place the Prime Meridian along a line he lined up the White House front door with the Capitol rotunda in 1793, an intersection he marked with a small wooden post, steps from the present-day Washington Monument that is now a stone marker.

One of the pictures shows the triangulation exercise on the National Mall; the other picture is the team with the 2nd place trophy at the awards ceremony. The students are: Taylor Hussey, Jade Simonson, and Andrew Goeckner.

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