Building Bridges for Industry
Students from the University of Greenwich at Medway had the chance to build bridges with the world of construction, as well as getting a chance to learn about the practical side of steel and concrete, when they attended a week-long Constructionarium.
The event held at the National Construction College in Norfolk in association with leading UK building firms Byrne Brothers and design and engineering consultancy Atkins, saw 33 full and part-time BEng/BSc undergraduates from the university’s Civil Engineering degree attend. The students were joined by Greenwich lecturer John Frankland and technician Barry Appleby.
Split into two groups, the students were given the task of recreating, from scratch, a scale model of the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield.
Students were encouraged to get involved with every aspect of the process from planning and designing their models to digging trenches and laying foundations as well as constructing the actual buildings.
Constructionarium was launched by national contractors, to give civil engineering students more practical experience as part of their undergraduate courses.
Atkins - the UK's largest engineering consultancy - already has close
links with the University of Greenwich through the sponsorship of the Atkins Professor of Civil Engineering.
Holder of that post Professor Chun Qing Li attended the Constructionarium and said: “The whole week was very successful and gave our students a priceless insight into the real building process. Many of them had never had the opportunity to get out on a real building site and this was a great chance to turn the theory into practice.
“It was also a valuable exercise in demonstrating what can be achieved by working together. By the end of the week both teams had built their scaled down models which measured about three metres in height and were about a quarter of the size of the real thing.”
Tony Backler, Senior Project Manager for Byrne, and leader of the supervision team said: “What a great week, hard going on occasions, but an excellent end result. It was very interesting to see two disparate groups of students at the start evolve in to two competitive, highly motivated teams, by the end.
“A substantial learning curve was achieved by all, me and my team included, and personally I can't wait to do it all again next year.”
Chris Woollams, a final year student with no previous site experience, said of the event: “I learned a lot from the Constructionarium trip. I now think about the stages of construction from a different point of view. We were presented with a set of drawings, and managed to complete the project in one week. Each day gave me a new construction experience.”
Another final year student Clive Sherwood agreed. He said: “Constructionarium gave me an appreciation of the theoretical techniques studied in class, being applied on a construction site. I was able to see the project through from start to finish.”
ENDS
For interview opportunities, please contact:
· University of Greenwich at Medway Public Relations, tel: 020 8331 9420
· Delphine Houlton, Andrew Metcalf or Jez Durrant, at Maxim, tel: 01892 513033