Next Meeting Presentation

Post President Steve Alm (r) thanks Brian Lokkesmoe (l), Bill Fellows (lc), and Brad Henry (rc) for their in-depth and fascinating presentation about how the Marquette Avenue and Second Avenue South Transit Project (MARQ2) was designed and constructed in an amazingly short period of time. 

The short-fuse requirements to compete for the Federal funding, along with the challenges of designing a project that had a myriad of utility system modifications, combined with the need to accommodate the businesses, workers, and inhabitants of one of the densest urban environments all combined to make this one and a half year project an extreme challenge.  The end is in sight, completion will be in a few weeks, and the project was an overwhelming success.

One of the highlights of the presentation was the animated CAD-generated videos that were developed by the design team to help "sell" the project and to help educate the public, the contractors, and the concerned business owners about the completed project will work, how construction sequencing will take place, and how the buses will be operated so that traffic flow is maximized.

Again this year, the Post has a goal to earn at least three National SAME Streamer Awards this year.  In order to complete requirements for the Education and Training Streamer and the Outreach and Communications Streamer we are requesting your assistance in gathering information to help us document how our members (that's YOU) are involved professionalism-related activities outside of your normal job.  Thus, we need a summary of your activities in any or all of the following endeavors:

• Submission of  articles to The Military Engineer or other professional journals.

• Involvement in mentoring activities for K-12 (includes science fairs, Learning for Life, MATHCOUNTS, Future City Competition, other types of classroom visits, or presentations pertaining to the sciences or engineering).

• Providing mentoring activities for college students (includes Student Chapter activities, mentoring for course work, assisting with Capstone projects).

Please submit information to Wayne Wambold at wwambold@sehinc.com by the end of December 2009. 

For the first items, please send a copy of your article or abstract along with date of submission and/or publication and which journal or conference it was for. 

For the mentoring activities we request a brief description and approximate number of hours involved.

Thank you for your cooperation.  We appreciate your dedication to the Post’s success in the Awards and Recognition Program.

This will be the third year that the M-SP Post will be sponsoring a special award category for the team that best addresses "Readiness for Natural and Man-made Disasters".   We need the assistance of four volunteers on the morning of January 23, 2010 to help select the team to receive our special award.  If you are willing to help with this portion of the event, please contact Jane Flewellen at 651-290-5554 or at jane.m.flewellen@usace.army.mil.

Help is also needed for judging various portions of the state-wide competition ...

Volunteers are needed to help judge the various portions of this season's National Engineers Week Future City Competition (FCC).  Volunteer judges are needed during the months of December and January.  For complete details see  http://www.successbeyond.org/FCCjudges.htm.

The competition is comprised of three judged parts:

• Computer design & layout using SimCity software

• A 700-1000 word essay on an assigned engineering-related topic

• Building a table top scale model of a section of the city and a team oral presentation of their city and model 

The competition is comprised of three judged parts:

• Computer design & layout using SimCity software

• A 700-1000 word essay on an assigned engineering-related topic

• Building a table top scale model of a section of the city and a team oral presentation of their city and model 

Send your contact info (name, company, work phone, work address, and email) to: Colleen Feller at colleen.feller@metroecsu.org or phone: 612-638-1511

For more information about FCC see the following websites:

 Minnesota: http://www.successbeyond.org/fcc.htm

National: http://www.futurecity.org

Join the team that makes a difference!

Using some of the proceeds from last year's National Conference revenue, one of the new endeavors that we started is a Grant Program for teachers to help them bring resources into their class rooms that they would not ordinarily have.  The goal of this program is to promote the learning of science and math which supports engineering to students through a creative activity/project of the teacher's choosing.  The Post will award two grants of up to $2,500; one grant will be targeted for a teacher in the grades of K-6, and the other will be targeted for a teacher in the grades 7-12.

Teachers who which to apply for one of the grants must provide a detailed description of the activity/project that they plan to do, as well as provide an estimated budget for the proposal activity.  In deciding how to award the grants, the Post will place a high value on the creativity of the proposed activity and the expected impact that it will have on the students.  The proposal should specify the equipment, materials, and supplies required and how they will be used to promote science and/or mathematics.  It should also address how the project supports the Minnesota academic standards for science and/or mathematics.  List how many students will be impacted in the proposal.  The students and faculty will be asked to present their finished product to representatives from SAME in the spring of 2011.  The presentation must demonstrate what the students have learned from the experience.

Applications for this year's grants are available at http://www.same-msp.org/grants.htm

Please pass the word about this opportunity on to any teachers that you may Know.  The application deadline is 1 February 2010.