Category: Public Works

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EPA Launches Multimedia Site

The US EPA has started up a multimedia site at www.epa.gov/multimedia that offers videos, audio/podcasts, and images. Some of the videos and podcasts cover information about Radon, water infrastructure, indoor air quality, and other topics related to the environment.

Visitors can also access an area of the site that allows for interaction between the EPA and the public. Here there are “green” tips for citizens and a link to a blog written by the Deputy Administrator, Marcus Peacock. The EPA also holds an “Ask EPA” session that is described as an “online interactive forum where you can discuss a wide range of environmental and human health issues with EPA’s senior officials.”

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Free Concrete Pavement Design Manual – for the next month only!

I just found out that the Portland Cement Association is offering the Hydrologic Design of Pervious Concrete manual for free as a pdf download off their Web site for the next month only. The manual is a 72-page publication for engineers, landscape architects, developers, and other design professionals who are interested in designing or reviewing designs of pervious concrete pavement.

Pervious pavement is a newer type design that creates a pavement with voids. This design allows storm water to drain or percolate through the pavement material into an underlying collection layer or into the native soil.

The URL for downloading this manual is: http://www.cement.org/bookstore/profile.asp?itemid=EB303

But hurry because it is only being offered until 3/31/2008 according to their site.

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Jeff and Sadie’s Bricklayer Display

Jeff Brody and Sadie Edelman have collaborated on creating a cool bricklaying animation and display and have set it all up on the dock near the education display (under the wind turbine) on the Public Works sim. If you teleport to the island, look for the red poseball by the brick wall, right click on it, choose “lay brick” and your avatar will begin placing brick on the wall.
Bricklaying in Second Life on Public Works
This animation came about because we had been talking about how there really are no construction-related animations in SL, so Jeff and Sadie started by making the bricklaying one which is really cool for all of us working in construction-related fields. If you need an animation like this for your site in SL, you can buy the animation by clicking on the red poseball and paying $250L. (Jeff and Sadie have graciously offered to donate the money to help fund the tier on the island.) A brick trowel and brick are located in the poseball and can be pulled out if you buy the poseball. Then you can wear these attachments to make the animation even more convincing.

Sadie worked on the other elements of the display like the wall, mortar pile, bucket, and cement mixer (which turns and looks awesome). The two of them have done a great job, and I can’t wait to see more of their creations! If they are able to make enough of a variety of animations, we talked about being able to have a construction site display with avatars demonstrating the different trades.

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For all things pavement….

Throughout my travels in Second Life, I have seen the impressive vision expressed by people who work for government agencies located in the United States. There are a number of creative and innovative government employees who have seen the potential of using Second Life to better perform their jobs and to reach out to citizens and other government professionals. The builds they have helped create provide an educational and intellectually stimulating location in which to learn and interact with others.

Today I found out that a group of government professionals, in partnership with the University of Washington, has been working with Internet-related technologies other than Second Life to come up with an impressive tool to share knowledge related to pavements. The result has been the Pavement Interactive Wiki. According to the site, “this document (or ‘Guide’ for short) is an Internet-based multimedia document whose primary purpose is to provide a general pavement overview covering all aspects from materials to design to construction to maintenance. It functions as a ‘Collaborative Web site’ that resides on the Internet and requires only a PC/Mac and minimal freeware to access the information.”

The site provides a multimedia and interactive product that engages the design and construction community and offers them training, information, and the ability to collaborate on all pavement-related topics.

Because all the content from a former Web site, Pavement Guide Interactive, was imported to the wiki, there is already a large amount of pavement-related information in the reference section. Other areas of the wiki are “portals” or areas where members of the original pavement consortium can create distinct pages for their agencies. Other groups, such as organizations, can create their own pages for collaboration in the “Groups” area of the site.

Users who register at the pavement interactive wiki can add research and content in the “articles” section. I registered immediately and added this wiki as a resource on our own Public Works wiki under the transportation section of the Public Works in Real Life page.

As a government worker myself, I applaud the leadership, vision, and innovation that continues to be exhibited by engineers and other public works staff employed by federal, state, and local agencies of our government. I figure it is only a matter of time before I can visit DOT, FHWA, and EPA islands in Second Life.

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Manhole Kit Now Available on Public Works

Ever since coming to Second Life, I have been working on ways to use the software to help me on my real life job. One of the items I have been working on is a Manhole Sizing Kit. Every now and then on a design, I am not really sure what diameter manhole would work best. Sometimes I have larger than average pipes and sometimes there are numerous pipes in one manhole. In the past I have always drawn out the manhole and pipes to scale and tried to recreate the design in a way that would help me visualize how it will all work. Well, now I realized, I can easily do this in Second Life.

After already using Second Life for this purpose last month and realizing how much easier this task was by doing it in-world, I decided it would be even better to have the whole kit available so that I don’t have to build my manholes and pipes as I need them. If I have all the sizes available to begin with, then the process of sizing the manhole using Second Life will be even that much faster.
Manhole Sizing Kit on Public Works

Well so far I have a box with precast manholes available in the following inside diameters: 2′, 3′, 4′, 5′, 6′, 7′, and 8′. I also have reinforced concrete pipes in all the available sizes from 12″ to 72″ inside diameter. They are set up in boxes for sale for $0L inside the Public Works Resource Center which is the brick garage on the hill on the Public Works Sim. I will also be adding some PVC pipe boxes in the future – most likely SDR 35 and SDR 26. If anyone has any other types of pipes that might be useful, just email me at pwg@publicworksgroup.com.

Now anyone can use these tools to help them size manholes in the design process just by logging into Second Life and picking up a kit. In the end, the completed manhole design might even provide an interesting photo opportunity.

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Too Much Down Time = Crazy Ideas

Ok, one more blog before I go back to work after being gone a full week. While traveling to and from Autodesk University, I was left with way too much down time to dream up new ideas. While only my coworkers and family are usually subjected to hearing about these, I decided to publish this one to the Web through my blog in the hopes that someone will see it, perhaps decide it has merit, and help bring it to implementation.

The emerging and growing push to become more green and sustainable has gotten me thinking about the products I use everyday. But not just about alternative products that use less energy. I am beginning to wonder how much energy is used to manufacture the products I use each day.

Perhaps the brand of toothpaste I buy uses twice the energy that a competitor uses. If I knew this information, I would buy the brand that has developed a more energy efficient manufacturing process. But how can the average consumer find out this information?

Well, I decided if the food producers/suppliers can be made to put nutrition-related information on their packaging, then any manufacturer of a packaged product should be able to or be regulated to put information on their packaging that indicates how much energy was used to produce that product. As a consumer concerned about our environment, I need to know this to make better purchasing decisions to ensure that I am doing my part to improve the environment.

The manufacturers already have to know this information because it is needed for them to operate and run their business. With all the push to be green, I would think that this is something that a politician could easily push through the legislative body of our country. In the meantime, I will be wondering with each purchase if I am really buying the most energy efficient product out there.

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