Day 8: Finally, a Real Survey

After an entire week of learning absolutely nothing except how to avoid an angry professor, I can finally say that I did learn something new. And what an experience it was!

The Total Station is an integrated theodolite, with tacheometric cross-hairs, and a microprocessor: that sounds pretty fine in theory. But when you do it in the field, you realise just why a TS along with an electronic compass is called 'The Complete Surveyor.' Yesterday, I thought GPS was God. I was wrong: GPS is the Prophet. TS is God!

The principle of a total station is simple ranging by means of laser-guided electromagnetic radiation. At each station, you need to set and orient the point that you're on, starting with zero bearing at the beginning and back sighting your way along the traverse. Once you get the hand of it (and its nomenclature, in particular), it is so fast and so simple that a station hardly takes five minutes.

Unless you happen to be working right behind the group that takes an hour on each. A pathetic sight it was, to see people fumbling around with the buttons (the input system is rather primitive, I must admit). Another group issued an extra reflector and disappeared with both. A TS survey is not really about ranging (the computer does that for you) but more about managing your reflectors: which is why so many teams made it a real headache.

The ending was simply classic. We decided to drop Stations 8 and 11 (9 and 10 were already deleted from the survey) i.e, we drop the slums. The final Stations was No. 1 (the picnic spot) and we ran there with all our life, despite the fact that our time was up. I was determined, we all were, to complete this one practical. It is the only real thing we learned and we just had to complete it.

And with one click on 'ALL,' it was done. Measured reading 12 was my last reading (although I now realise that I should have also taken 21, but that's OK for a learner), after which we got back for the post-processing. The data was good, although the traverse was incomplete due to the missing 21 reading.

And the cherry on top of the cake? That prof knows nothing about TS and is prepared to admit it (a rare combination, mainly the last clause) and kept his mouth shut as we discussed the best way to orient our first station. Oh, the wonderful silence!