Today, we hosted a  FIRST® LEGO® League team, and it was so much fun!  FIRST® LEGO® League introduces young people (grades 4-8), to the fun and excitement of science and technology. Teams of up to ten children, led by two screened Lead coaches, participate in a challenge tournament. Teams and events are all over the world.

By designing challenges around topics, participants are exposed to potential career paths within a chosen challenge topic, in addition to solidifying the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) principles that naturally come from participating in the program. Team members also learn valuable life and employment skills which will benefit them no matter which career path they choose.

Many thanks to Nathan Moore, Jason Ellis, and Brad D’Agnillo, for giving awesome presentations with visual demonstrations to the kids. You should have heard the incredibly good questions the kids asked: How does the point cloud show measurements? What do the different colors in the scan mean? What kind of education/degree did you get to do this?

After visiting several job sites, the kids will select a project. If the topic is something they learned here, we have committed to being available to answer questions as they begin the project. We can’t wait to hear if we piqued their interest in something related to engineering, 3D scanning, or sports fields.

What an awesome opportunity to expose young kids to things we do here and encourage them into the survey and engineering professions. The presentations were so good that I could see us taking this show “on the road”….to local middle and senior high schools!

Each year, The Kleingers Group conducts the measurements for the Ohio Challenge Hot Air Balloon Festival, measuring the distance between dropped beanbags and the targets.

The Kleingers Group is pleased to once again sponsor The Ohio Challenge Hot Air Balloon and Skydiving Festival!

For more than a decade, The Kleingers Group has conducted the measurements for the event, measuring the distance between beanbags dropped from the balloons and the targets during the competitions.

This year, we will be out there again with the robotic total station to help make the measurements needed to declare a winner.

Each year up to 40 of the country’s best balloon pilots compete in the three-day challenge while tens of thousands of people enjoy the two-day festival.

In addition to the competition, visitors can enjoy a balloon glow, skydiving performances, balloon rides, a car show, games, entertainment, and food.

The 13^th annual Ohio Challenge Hot Air Balloon Festival will be held July 10 – 12 at Smith Park in Middletown.

Visit www.ohiochallenge.com for more information.

Each year, The Kleingers Group hosts an annual meeting to review goals, set new ones, talk about the company’s progress and get to know each other a bit better.

This year we hung out with The Reds!

The Kleingers Group has long believed in the importance of building better communities.

While we hope that those values come through on every project we work on, there are some projects of which we are particularly proud.

For the last several years, The Kleingers Group has worked with Habitat for Humanity Greater Cincinnati to survey properties donated to the group.

Specifically, once an individual has donated a piece of property to Habitat, our surveyors have volunteered to complete boundary and topographic surveys of the property, ensuring property lines are correct and no conflicts exist with the property.

Habitat then uses the information to build a new home or rehabilitate an existing home.

“This is one thing we can do to help the overall community by giving back,” said Director of Surveying Dave Cox.

This past year, surveyors have spent time at homes in Lockland, but have previously surveyed throughout the Greater Cincinnati area.

In addition to the time spent surveying, our surveyors have also given to their communities in a multitude of other ways, helping others to learn about the profession.

Several of our surveyors have spent time helping Cub Scouts earn their Engineering badges by helping them learn about what engineers, architects, and surveyors do.

Recently, Matt Habedank worked with the St. Dominic cub scout pack 483, showing them how to measure property lines with the robotic total station.

Among other things, Matt said he let the kids guess how far they were away from the instrument.

Most of them have never even heard of surveying, Matt said, and learning about it can be eye-opening.

Other surveyors have volunteered their engineering knowledge throughout the world. Randy has spent time on construction projects in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru.

Regardless of how they choose to do it, The Kleingers Group is proud of our surveyors for helping to strengthen their communities and for sharing their knowledge and talents.