A rotatable connector pin assembly is disposed within an opening in an adapter nose, with opposite ends of the pin portion of the assembly extending outwardly beyond opposite sides of the adapter nose in axially fixed orientations relative thereto, and is used to captively and releasably retain a replaceable excavating tooth point on the nose. The body member is formed from a plurality of natural biodegradable polysaccharides having pendent coupling groups. The beam-steering apparatus includes a plurality of planar tiltable mirrors arranged to define a radiation beam path therebetween, wherein the plurality of planar tiltable mirrors comprises at least three tiltable mirrors. The single component bumper and longitudinally extending mounting leg structure can be formed by welding together two vertically oriented tubes. Particles are collected into a small volume of liquid to facilitate subsequent analysis by an attached analyzer or at a remote site. The integrity of the GPS measurements are checked if the first and second inter-vehicle distances are nearly equivalent.