Excavation for the new addition began on September 6, 2006. It was hard to focus on work because the construction was so fascinating. Having an "aerial" view from the third floor of the existing building is awesome.
The giant chunk of concrete was pulled from the foundation area between the existing building and the lecture hall. The construction crew tried to break it up with jackhammers, but were unsuccessful. They tried several ways to move it, including "rolling" it over and over with a backhoe, (THUD! THUD! THUD!) but it wouldn't move very far. In the end, they used the giant crane which made short work of moving it away. The dump trucks were not able to handle the size and weight of the chunk, so they had to get a huge flat-bed truck to carry it away. You can see how big the chunk was by comparing it to the Bobcat in the picture.
