Sand in the City is an event held at Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon that is sponsored by Mr. Yoshida and supports Impact NW which is an organization that provides support and aid to Northwest children. The event consists of hundreds of cubic yards of sand being dumped into Pioneer Square and then teams create sculptures around a central theme. There are a couple categories like competitors choice, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st, and the people’s choice award. The event was held on Friday July 20th this year and had 12 different teams competing; I was on the Turner/AMAA team and the central theme was “No place like home” and our take on it was “Our home in 2030”. Basically, we wanted people to be able to see our home in 2030 because we are currently over-loading the earth and we need to be more environmentally conscious if we want to thrive in a livable world in 2030. Therefore we used the theme of the Lorax to display and encourage that image because he is a stalwart for sustainability and the environment. It was my first time being involved in the event in any form and I had a complete blast!

The event started at 8:00 AM but I wasn’t able to make it till 9:00 because I had a superintendent’s breakfast at 6:00 AM followed by some safety training but I didn’t miss much. It was a lot more work than I expected! When I got there the forms were already nailed and placed so all we had to do was put the sand in the forms and start tamping and compacting. The only materials that were allowed was sand and water and only hand tools were allowed. I spent the majority of the time shoveling sand from the large community sand pile into our own pile so that we can start filling the forms. The more experienced team members handled the mixing of water and sand along with compacting the sand. Our total structure was designed to be 9 feet tall but that prove to be too tall so we scaled it down a bit to around 7 feet tall. The tall structure was the Once-ler’s house and took 4 forms and a crap load of sand and man power. We had around 23 people with around 12 people not coming until we were doing pulling the forms because they were the architects and were in charge of drawing out the details. Below are pictures of what our project looks like during and after construction.

All work at to be completed at 4:00 PM because they judges make you step away from your work and if you continue then you will be disqualified. We finished right up to the last second and so did every other team. The judges then walk around to decide the winner and announce an hour later. We ended up placing 3rd place which sucks because we won it last year and I believe our sculpture was outstanding but then again, I am biased. But we still have hope in the people’s choice which will end on Sunday at 1 PM. I will be there for that to see if we won or not and also that is the same day they demolish all of the sand sculptures so it should be fun to watch. I also got to get a picture with Mr. Yoshida who is the main proponent of the event.

Only two days has passed since I’ve started my full-time job but it seems like a week has passed! I just spent 4.5 hours going through New Contractor Orientation to just be able to work on the Intel campus because they are very stringent on safety and are very serious about the issue. The campus is a lot larger than I expected, They have 2 huge buildings just for the contractor’s only and 1 building online just working on the new D1X fab facility. I can tell from the atmosphere is that everybody is also busy and that was apparent from my first engineer’s meeting where everybody was talking about their projects and the constant problems that are popping up. Tomorrow I will be joining this discussion because I have completed the majority of my orientation with Turner except for a few HR issues because the current system hasn’t recognized me yet but that shouldn’t be an issue for long.

Life is definitely different being a full-time employee because you know you must perform well for your company while as an intern you didn’t have that kind of bond. My biggest fear is just learning everything because it seems so fast-paced and everybody uses so many acronyms that I don’t even understand what they are saying at times. I’m sure I will get the hang of it after a few months but for now I’m just trying to learn the ropes. Hopefully I’ll be able to make contributions to the team soon and be able to impress my coworkers and supervisors. I wonder if I’ll notice when I start talking like everybody else and using the acronyms properly.

I don’t have a set date at how long I will be at Intel but I won’t be surprised if I spend a few years here and I don’t have an issue with that because I will always be constantly busy with work and will be learning so much. Also, Intel is a very intelligent and demanding owner so I’ve heard that if I can succeed at Intel then everything should be cake. Here we go!

I just finished taking the LEED Green Associate on June 9th, 2012 at my local Prometric location and passed with a score of 184/200 (92%)! It was my first attempt at the LEED GA and my major is construction engineering management so I was knowledgeable with LEED but not to the degree that I could pass the test without the mildly rigorous studying that I did. Like many others who have taken the test, I did a lot of googling about “how to pass the LEED GA” and read on forums about other people who got high scores and garnered as much experience from them as I could. If you’re thinking about taking the LEED GA soon then please take some heed to what I have to say because it could help you pass the exam the first time and avoid paying another $150 to retake the test!

The two critical success factors to passing the LEED GA for me was reading study guides and taking practice exams. Those are the two main things I will focus on through this post.

Study Guides

I don’t think I could have passed this test without the study guides that I used; I only used two. The first one was a study guide that I got from a friend and it was the  the LEED AP Building Design + Construction Study Guide published by the USGBC. This was the first book I read consisting solely of LEED principles and it was extremely helpful to get familiar with LEED, their requirements, the categories, and the credits involved with each one. It was very helpful that the book had a glossary of terms before each category so that I could get to know the definitions before I read each chapter. They also have five practice questions at the end of each section that really test your knowledge because they are difficult questions. Sometimes the questions are a little absurd because I read some of the questions and it required a lot of extrapolation from what was written in the text; so some of the questions were way too difficult and I didn’t see questions of that level of difficulty on the official LEED GA. This book was a good starting point to get familiar with LEED but I would definitely not delve too far into it because it goes in-depth to the actual calculations for the credit and that is not pertinent information for the LEED GA. A friend let me borrow the book for free so if you had to purchase the book, I would NOT recommend it because the second book I used was excellent.

The second study guide was a free one I found on the internet called the LEED Green Associate Study Guide published by Studio4; it was free when I downloaded it but I heard that they started charging but I think you can still find a free copy by googling. The book is 240 pages and I read it from cover to cover and that truly elevated my knowledge of LEED. It was very comprehensive in regards to the credit requirements of each category and the text was very easy to understand. The outline of the study guide was also very easy to follow and they used a good example of a theoretical project trying to achieve LEED certification throughout the study guide. They also had comprehensive guide of glossary terms that was good to know because there was several questions regarding definitions like albedo, density factor, building footprint, among many others. The only thing I didn’t like about the study guide was that it didn’t include any practice questions because I think that really helps emphasize learning. I would highly recommend either finding a free copy online or purchasing it.

Practice Exams

I used three different practice exams before I took the test and averaged around a 70% on all three tests but I noticed that the questions in those exams were far more difficult than anything I saw on the actual LEED GA. It was really good preparation because a lot of those questions I saw on the LEED GA but was just reworded differently. I took the free 100 question practice exam that was created by www.buildingmygreenlife.com and that was very helpful because of the specific questions they asked and I saw several of the questions on the LEED GA. I also took the 35 question practice exam given by www.greenstepeducation.com which requires you to e-mail an address to get the answer key but that was not an issue because I got a response within 5 minutes. I did pretty bad on this test and I think it was because the questions were a little misleading but it was also good practice. Both of these tests were truly helpful because instead of telling you which answer is correct they include a short paragraph on why that answer is correct and the others are incorrect. The final practice exam I took was the 10 question and 50 question from www.greenworkexperience.com which was the most easiest and realistic in terms of test taking because it was administered online; the other ones I printed out. This test included a lot of questions that were actually on the LEED GA and it was the last practice exam I took before the actual one. I didn’t like how they didn’t explain the correct/incorrect answers which could have helped in learning the material.

If you want to pass the LEED GA, then you must take as many practice exams as you can! I can’t stress how important practice exams are because they test how well you know the basics of LEED and many of the questions you will see on test day. It is also good to take the 100 question exam in actual conditions (2 hour limit, no outside information, secluded area, etc.) to help you prepare for testing conditions and to see if time will be an issue for you. I truly believe that the reason I was able to pass the LEED GA was because I took as many practice exams as I did, and don’t be discouraged if you get a bad score because the questions on the LEED GA are easier than what’s on those practice exams.

Tips!

1. Give yourself a few days to study. Don’t cram for the test because there is just too much information to be disseminated in a few hours. Allow yourself at least a few days to read through the study guide by Studio4 and any other materials that you could get your hands on. I didn’t read any of the references that was listed on the USGBC website. I also studied a week before my test at 2-4 hours a day with the final 2 days somewhere between 4-6 hours.

2. Take as many practice exams as you can! I can’t stress this enough, the indicator to you passing the LEED GA will be dependent on how many practice exams you take. I remember taking one of the practice exam a few hours before my test and 3 of the questions were almost verbatim on the test. If you don’t have time to read through all your study materials then spend all the time you have before your test on taking practice exams.

3. Read each question very, very carefully. I can remember one question where it asks you to calculate the water usage per day depending on FTE and one word changed which answer you would pick; the word was graywater, and if you didn’t catch that word then you might calculate the total water because it included both toilets and lavatories. And of course all the answers available were “correct” depending on how you did your calculations.

4. Mark every question you have any hint of hesitation about. If you finish with plenty of time left (>30 mins) then you should have no problem with going over all the answers you have questions about a second time. I marked more than 50% of the questions and finished with more than a hour left. Before I reviewed my marked answers, I took a bathroom break to splash some water on my face and take some deep breathes to clear my head. This short intermission really helped me rejuvenate and refocus and let me go back into the questions with a new perspective.

5. Relax and have confidence in your studies. I knew that I had studied well for the exam and did fairly well on the practice exams. I was thrilled going through the first few questions of the test and thinking how easy these questions were. So just relax, have confidence in yourself, and make sure you took the necessary time to prepare yourself for the test.

I hope you all the best on the passing the LEED Green Associate exam!!