GEOM20015: Surveying and Mapping

Major Practical Assignment (3 separate components) - 70%, 2 hour exam - 30%

This is a subject that – although I did well in it – was pretty gruelling and stressful, mainly due to the excess of practical group work.

The assignments and fieldwork themselves are generally pretty fun and reasonably easy to follow, especially if you have already done Mapping Environments, which is not a prerequisite but should be. They feature something sorely lacking in my uni experience so far: hands on fieldwork. This makes it a nice change from most other subjects, but the three hour practicals can drag on a bit.

Cliff is an excellent lecturer and all lectures are recorded. Lecture attendance is severely low (about 10 people turn up out of 120) but the lectures are quite important to listen to and understand to avoid being hindrance to your group.

The best part of this subject is the tutors. Kenny, the head tutor for both this subject and Mapping Envs, is probably the best tutor I have had so far throughout my course. He's a nice, helpful dude that explains content well and attempts to ensure that all groups are up to speed. He is also very reasonable and willing to give extensions if need be. The other tutors are also helpful.

The total contact hours in the handbook estimates about 120 hours for the subject all up. Given the practical work is worth 70%, this equates to about 85 hours of group work, and that's probably realistic. So, if like me, you are the only one in a group of three that knows what you are doing, you pretty much end up with 100 hours of work to do over the course of the semester for the project, which is obviously far from ideal.

The project itself is to make a fairly complicated digital terrain model of the university oval. You'll first do horizontal levelling, then use $10000+ total station to do a horizontal traverse and detail field survey, then manipulate this data with AutoCAD Civil 3D. If this sounds pretty complicated, it's because it is. If you have average to crappy group members like I did, these assignments can be pretty stress inducing and life consuming.

Probably the worst part of the subject is the lack of instruction AutoCAD. The program is not available on any of the computers on campus and you need a decently spec'ed Windows laptop to run it properly. The extent of teaching the software is basically limited to "here's some YouTube tutorials, now make me a complicated model." Pretty poor but I'm sure this will improve, as this was the first year of them using AutoCAD instead of LisCAD.

The exam was pretty straightforward. Going on my marks for the project, I must have pretty much aced the exam to end up a final mark of 90 (my best for any subject, ever).
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this subject due to the high volume of practical work (and the subsequent dependence on group members), but it would be a breeze if you had a good group as most of the content is pretty easy and very familiar for any who have done Mapping.

Yes, with screen capture

Cliff Ogleby

Yes, 4. No solutions provided.

3 out of 5

None

2 x 1 hour lectures, 1 x 3 hour practical

Sem 2, 2013

H1