Page 18 - ESS July 2023

NSPS Student Competition 2023

By Katherine O’Buckley

My name is Katherine O’Buckley and I graduated from the scavenging around the city for NGS monuments. They were
Land Surveying and Geomatics Program in 2022. I participated given an ARCGIS field map app designed by Linda Foster,
in the NSPS Student Competition twice. Once, in 2020 when ESRI of the monuments that included the NGS data sheets.
they were still in paper/presentation format and the second Different point values were given to over 60 monuments. Their
time in 2022 when they had first introduced the field exercise appointed young surveyor recorded a picture of the monument
format. I had an immense amount of fun the second time and and extra points were given to teams that posted a picture of
it wasn’t just because I wasn’t writing a 30 page paper about the the monument to social media. Lookup #nsps and #ysn to find
new datum. Being around the other states opened my eyes to these posts on various social media platforms.
a community much larger than that of New York and it made All field exercises took place in close proximity to the Washington
me extremely excited. Immediately after graduating, I felt the Monument. The field exercises consisted of a 4 sided traverse, a
hole in my life from the community I had just left and attended level loop, and a triangulation exercise. Young Surveyors were
my first NSPS meeting that fall in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There, I at each station to set up the equipment, judge professionalism
made friends with people from across America including states and time the students computations. For the traverse, students
such as Texas, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Not only did I enjoy were given a compass and chain and needed to calculate interior
my time eating tacos and going to the Oklahoma equivalent angles, leg distances and calculate resulting coordinates. The
of a Dave and Busters (and kicking butt in laser tag), but I level loop was done between 5 temporary monuments and
got the opportunity to more deeply understand the state of judged on field notes and closing elevation. The triangulation
our industry and the immense need to support and grow the exercise used the Washington monument as a backsight while
incoming generation. set up on 2 other coordinate known monuments and tasked
The 2023 Student Competition was run and organized by with turning angles on a T2 to calculate the coordinates of
Young Surveyors Network (YSN) in Washington, DC. The an unknown coordinate for the monument Jeffersons Pier. It
participation from Colleges around the County was excellent. was great to see the outside interest from passersby wondering
In total, 24 schools from around the Nation competed in the and asking what in the world we are doing. Especially because
competition, from Cal Poly Tech to the University of Puerto students were given extra credit for wearing Surveying attire
Rico and even Klein Collins High School from Texas. from any past time period. A huge thank you to Les and Lisa
Leading up to the Student Competition, I attended planning Van Horn for bringing the equipment from NWTC, WSLS
meetings as well as helping with graphics and social media Foundation and their own personal collection and for guiding
for NSPS YSN. Before the competition, I also attended the the traverse exercise.
NYSAPLS conference and met Richard Reed. Richard was A social event at the conclusion of the competition Thursday
looking to join our Young Professionals Committee and was evening consisted of Bingo, Trivia, and Prizes. Friday morning,
also interested in participating at the national level. NSPS YSN held their spring meeting. This meeting
After convincing my sister Dannielle, who is was led by our new president Jacob Heck
a licensed surveyor in NY, to come and we welcomed Nolan Mark as
to Washington DC, we Vice President and Heather
had a full crew representing Keenan as Secretary. A total
New York State! of 35 young surveyors were in
attendance from 21 different
The structure of the com- states! By far a new record.
petition was similar to last We discussed upcoming
year but due to the number events including FIG and
of schools, half participated in the Fall meeting. We also
the monument hunt portion collaborated on centrally
one day, while the other located study material,
half tackled the field exercises. sharing YSN information and
The monument hunt consisted of licensing requirements to our page on
each school paired with a young surveyor

16 EMPIRE STATE SURVEYOR / VOL. 59 • NO 4 / 2023 • JULY/AUGUST