Spectacular Maths Day

Two years ago, immediately after Peter Garside (mate and maths teacher) and I had made a presentation to the NSW Math Teachers conference, Peter had an inspiration – why not run a huge maths day at Bicentennial Park and get as many schools to attend as possible. Bob Harrison was a little concerned that we were biting off more than we could chew. Instead, last year, we decided to hold a surveying demonstration at Queenwood for 100 year 10 maths students. Queenwood were chosen because they had been at the presentation and requested surveyors attend their school. In the meantime, Peter was still badgering me and I in turn was badgering Bob. About 6 months ago, Bob said to me “Do you realise how much it costs to hire Bicentennial Park?” I said “No”, visited their website, found out that it amounted to somewhere between $3000 and $5000. Undeterred I sent off an email to them, found out it was free for education use, and the rest is history.

Peter and I hurriedly started the organisation. Peter kept co-opting retired teachers to the committee. Their dedication to the task was unbelievable – they kept wanting to visit the park and hold more meetings! Eventually faced with a month’s holiday overseas, I was forced to co-opt Anna Allen to the committee in my absence and keep her on the committee on my return home, so that it at least looked like surveyors were doing their fair share of the work. Those additional teachers were Mary Barnes, Beth Haggerty and Robyn Deane and without such a fantastic committee, the day would not have been possible.

There were some interesting problems we faced. I thought getting schools to attend would be a piece of cake. From our presentation last year we had many schools that had indicated they were keen to participate in such a day. Many of them I rang 6 times without response. We actually ended up with only one of these schools attending the day. With about 2 months to go, we only had 2 schools booked in. After putting in an article in the Maths Association website and newsletter, it took a few days to find the remaining 4 schools. At last we had our 180 Year 10 advanced maths students! A couple of weeks later, we had turned away a further 11 schools, totalling about 300 students!

Next problem was to get surveyors. Because I was going overseas, our ad in Azimuth gave Anna
Parker from ISNSW’s email address as a contact. ISNSW were in the middle of an office move and in the middle of this Anna resigned. All her emails were lost! Allow me to apologise to anyone who was caught up in this mess. With only a few days to go, I was being rung by frustrated potential attendees wanting to know why they had been ignored. I managed to forget to add a few surveyors to the list who had volunteered as well! Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Bob Harrison did a great job of getting me volunteers and about 2 weeks before the event, I was confident I had enough surveyors to run the day.

Another issue was the name of the day. Bob had nicknamed it the “Surveying Spectacular”, a name I quite liked and a follow on from the name of the Queenwood day. I used this terminology mostly when referring to the day. It was only about a month before the big day, when we were finalising a lot of the paperwork that was to go out, that the teachers (who were a majority) unanimously decided that they didn’t like the name. “It’s not a spectacular” they said. We eventually decided on “Maths in Surveying Day” which then brought mostly negative comments, when I attended the next Careers and Promotions committee meeting. I couldn’t win! If anyone out there wants to make any suggestions for a name, they would be most welcome.

The activities for the day were very diverse, including mapping exercises using compass and tape, remote heighting using total stations and shadows, some astronomy exercises, a high tech setout of a mathematical seed pattern using robotic total stations and RTK GNSS receivers (see picture), 3D modelling using close range photogrammetry and laser scanners and some CAD work. With less than a week to go, I was unable to source a laser scanner, so this was replaced by a low tech surveying exhibition of old levels and theodolites, chains, kurta and trig and log tables. As you can see, there was plenty to do and some of it required not only fine weather, but sunny cloudless weather as well! We did have some contingency plans for a cloudy day, but not for a rainy one.

From about the Sunday before the big day, the Bureau of Meteorology, consistently predicted poor weather for the day. We had decided that the day was to be cancelled if the weather was against us. Apparently, it is very difficult for schools to reschedule and I wasn’t sure how easy it was going to be to get all the surveyors back another time. Peter and I had been booked in to present the results of the day at the NSW Maths Conference in September and now there was a real possibility that the day may be a washout! Fortunately there was no rain during the week and Friday morning saw bright blue cloudless skies. As I drove into the carpark at 7.30am I was meet by about 3 trucks and asphalting machinery filling the bus parking area! I consulted the foreman, who knew nothing about the day.

When I informed him that there were going to be 6 buses trying to park where his machinery was he casually mentioned they would move into the carpark. Then I told him that the carpark would soon be full of cars. He swore! I have never seen workmen get going so quickly. By about 10am they had finished doing their work and were gone. They had managed to get rid of some of the trucks and machinery shortly before everyone began to arrive. And so the day began with bright sunshine and noisy machinery almost gone. However it got progressively cloudier and after lunch, rained for about 15 minutes, before eventually blowing over.

It appears we were a bit too ambitious. Most of the exercises had only 15 minutes allocated to them. With some surveyors running late, schools running late, trainee teachers leading school groups running late, survey equipment with setout Eastings and Northings reversed or not loaded in at all, the whole day was going pearshaped. I was run off my feet fire fighting, but was amazed to see the initiative from the surveyors to make sure that the students were kept occupied.

I am making things sound pretty bad, but I think despite some of the teething problems, the day was a huge success. Surveyors, teachers and more importantly students seemed to find the day extremely beneficial and the compliments were flowing from all sources. If you don’t believe me, speak to one of the 40 surveyors who magnificently gave of their time. We are indeed a very fine and unselfish profession. Thank you to all those who were so willing to spend a day with the students. I hope to see you at the next Spectacular Maths Day.

Written by:

Ian Iredale

Registered Surveyor

http://www.mapsoft.com.au/ (miniCAD5 Surveying Software)