Field trips

Yesterday, we went on a couple different field trips and generally had a lovely day. First up was a field trip to our local Traffic Operations Facility. Another mom in our homeschool group set it up and it was well attended. (I think a number of us parents were actually more curious than the kids, lol.) Because of the size of our group, we split up into two...based just on where we happened to be standing at the time, which meant that Asher and Micah ended up in a different group than Noah and me (which was totally fine).

Noah and I started out in the conference room where we were able to ask questions of the lady there. (I missed her name but she handles all accident reports/logs in town.) I now know who to talk to about the fact that our street sign does not match what the post office says our street name is (post office says it's two words, street sign has it as a single word) and where to contact to complain about poor visibility around intersections. ;) 

After that, we switched with the first group and went into a control room with the traffic engineer guy, Joe. He was awesome at fielding our many questions and showed us their many traffic technologies like this simulator and the different types of cameras/signals to be found at intersections:

He also showed us the inner workings of the intersection control boxes, and kids were amazed to see how big traffic signals actually are:

It was interesting to learn about how advanced Fort Collins' systems actually are (particularly for a town our size) and I appreciated his explanation about careers. When asked, he explained that his degree was in civil engineering but also went on to explain that his particular job differs from most civil engineering in that he has to deal with the human factor a great bit more. (He used the analogy of water and pipes...if another engineer knows the pipe diameter and the flow of water and such, he can determine what the results will be with some accuracy. Traffic flows differently than water, though, due to human drivers. Hence, he deals with a lot more inconsistencies and actually talks with people regularly.)

After also seeing the components room and the trucks they use for installing things and such, we finished up out front, where Asher, Micah and friends posed happily with this anonymous traffic guy:

Whew. (I'll have you note, too, that even though Noah was reluctant and felt that he stood out as one of only a few older kids present, he admitted to having learned interesting things and that it wasn't the end of the world, lol.)

After that, we grabbed a snack and dropped Noah off at swim team then turned around and came back up north to attend an Otter Box tour with the group we've been doing 4H Engineering classes with (this was the conclusion of the five week session which was also organized by a mom in our homeschool group). We got a tour of the facility (headquarters...there are actually a number of Otter Box facilities here in Fort Collins) and Asher and Micah both thought it was simply fabulous and would be an awesome place to work.

As part of the tour, we had a presentation with a couple of the Otter Box engineers who came to talk with the kids about the software and process they use and what it's like to be an engineer. The kids got to take apart models of cases as the engineers were explaining the steps behind making them:

And, then, as the grand finale, we all got to go down the Otter Box slide:

It was pretty cool. It's right in the front lobby of headquarters and is impressively built of stainless steel (don't quote me on that) with bronze sculptures around the edges. (It notably lacks a center support as is standard in spiral slides, as they didn't want one and worked with engineers to innovate this one.)

And that was our day of field trips. :)