Expect to be outdoors most of the time working in small groups, so dress for the weather. The anticipated exercises will include a vendor demo, running a level loop, collecting cross section and profile data, collecting topography and laying out a curve using coordinates. The topo data collected may be used for your mapping project. Community colleges maintain excellent math assessment staff and can greatly assist a student in evaluating their math capability. Trigonometric operations in surveying rely heavily on the laws of the right triangle and on the law of sine and cosine.
Basic algebra is required for curve computations.
This course introduces the fundamental theories and skills of modern surveying. Topics covered at an introductory level include, GPS datums, tidal datums, the National Integrated Land System and curve computations. Field survey staff gain an understanding and appreciation for the use of the data they acquire for map production by office staff and office staff gain an understanding of the work environment and tools of the field survey crews. Computer based processing of topographic and traverse field data are important elements of this course. Computation and field layout of simple horizontal and vertical curves are also covered.