Since it took us like a month and a half of being here to launch this blog, there is a decent backlog of ‘significant’ things that happened we still need to get to. Since most of our blog-reading public don’t know much about Nick’s company here, Arup, we thought to write a bit on his Graduate Induction Weekend, which gives a good feel for the company.
Arup is an international design firm with about 7,000 designing buildings, infrastructure, and a whole lot of other things as well. They are well known for their design of the Sydney Opera house in the 1960s. Anyway, as a new starter, Nick went to a week-long introduction camp with about 180 other new hires from across Europe…
The first part of the week was spent in Cheltenham, which is near the southern border of Wales and England. I wasn’t sure if there would be any other Americans starting in Europe, and sure enough, it ended up being me and 179 Brits at the induction weekend, with a few eastern Europeans and one guy from Arup’s Botswana office (what are we doing here =). Other than late nights at the pub, the weekend was all about getting to know people, ‘team building’, and learning about Arup from the directors, etc.
The weekend was very relaxed, and the team building exercises, though there were far too many of them, were pretty fun. The highlight of the weekend for my team was this bottle-rocket competition, where about 18 teams had 3 tries each to launch a bottle half filled with water as far as possible (see pictures). To launch the rocket, you had to insert a specially fitted bicycle pump end into a rubber valve, and pump until the end popped out, spewing water out the valve and sending the rocket flying. After two embarrassingly mediocre launches, we decided to rig the valve up, and used brute force to shove the pump end through the valve completely, then used some blue tac to seal the valve. When we pumped this time, it got to the point where the guy pumping could barely push the pump down, and we thought the valve would never pop. Finally it did, soaking our whole team, and sending the rocket climbing for what seemed like forever. The whole assembly went quiet, watching as our rocket flew like no bottle-rocket ever flew before. The farthest rocket to that point was maybe a third of the way down this huge field, and our rocket finally set down in the bushes at the back of the field, utterly destroying the competition and apparently flying the farthest of any year ever. We won a case of beer, pokemon desk trophies, and unending glory and respect =). Not a bad day.
After the induction weekend, the civils group headed down to Cardiff on the southern coast of Wales for our skills week, perhaps the nerdiest part of nerd camp. We met in groups and learned a lot about a large new motorway project in southern Wales. Later in the week, we went on a site visit to see some of the fields and houses that the new road will actually pass through, and learned about the views of the local community, which are basically that they are angry.
While in Cardiff, we got to check out the city some, and were staying in the back of this huge new concert hall on the waterfront called the Millennium Centre. Arup designed this as well as a number of buildings on the Cardiff waterfront, and I was generally really impressed with the city. Maybe we’ll have to go back some time while we’re over here. Anyone up for flying over and coming with?
Arup is an international design firm with about 7,000 designing buildings, infrastructure, and a whole lot of other things as well. They are well known for their design of the Sydney Opera house in the 1960s. Anyway, as a new starter, Nick went to a week-long introduction camp with about 180 other new hires from across Europe…
The first part of the week was spent in Cheltenham, which is near the southern border of Wales and England. I wasn’t sure if there would be any other Americans starting in Europe, and sure enough, it ended up being me and 179 Brits at the induction weekend, with a few eastern Europeans and one guy from Arup’s Botswana office (what are we doing here =). Other than late nights at the pub, the weekend was all about getting to know people, ‘team building’, and learning about Arup from the directors, etc.
The weekend was very relaxed, and the team building exercises, though there were far too many of them, were pretty fun. The highlight of the weekend for my team was this bottle-rocket competition, where about 18 teams had 3 tries each to launch a bottle half filled with water as far as possible (see pictures). To launch the rocket, you had to insert a specially fitted bicycle pump end into a rubber valve, and pump until the end popped out, spewing water out the valve and sending the rocket flying. After two embarrassingly mediocre launches, we decided to rig the valve up, and used brute force to shove the pump end through the valve completely, then used some blue tac to seal the valve. When we pumped this time, it got to the point where the guy pumping could barely push the pump down, and we thought the valve would never pop. Finally it did, soaking our whole team, and sending the rocket climbing for what seemed like forever. The whole assembly went quiet, watching as our rocket flew like no bottle-rocket ever flew before. The farthest rocket to that point was maybe a third of the way down this huge field, and our rocket finally set down in the bushes at the back of the field, utterly destroying the competition and apparently flying the farthest of any year ever. We won a case of beer, pokemon desk trophies, and unending glory and respect =). Not a bad day.
After the induction weekend, the civils group headed down to Cardiff on the southern coast of Wales for our skills week, perhaps the nerdiest part of nerd camp. We met in groups and learned a lot about a large new motorway project in southern Wales. Later in the week, we went on a site visit to see some of the fields and houses that the new road will actually pass through, and learned about the views of the local community, which are basically that they are angry.
While in Cardiff, we got to check out the city some, and were staying in the back of this huge new concert hall on the waterfront called the Millennium Centre. Arup designed this as well as a number of buildings on the Cardiff waterfront, and I was generally really impressed with the city. Maybe we’ll have to go back some time while we’re over here. Anyone up for flying over and coming with?
5 comments:
Wow...I don't know what to say, other than "Nerd Camp" is an appropriate title :-).
And yet again...
I don't understand....
nerd camp.....the sad thing is I was envious and would have enjoyed being there.
-Justin
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