Expansive soils cause more property damage per year than earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Expansive soils are a slow-moving geologic phenomenon, which makes them not very news-worthy. However, they still cause a tremendous amount of damage to buildings and the public infrastructure we rely on every day.
This video explores a primer on one of the most important companions to civil engineering: land surveyors. Conventional measurement tools like a tape measure and protractor don't work for large civil structures and public works projects. Surveying is essentially the science of measuring big stuff. In this video I give a quick explanation of how surveying works and show a few ways you can do your own leveling survey at home. No sines, cosines, or tangents required!