Civil Engineering is a field that is proving to be particularly sensitive to the dynamics of the labour market. It has become noticeably less popular in countries such as Portugal, Greece, Croatia (and other European Countries) where employment levels for Civil Engineers have dropped significantly. This is a very problematic context as Civil Engineering is present in everyday life and is indeed a requisite for sustaining life as we have become used to understand it: buildings, roads, traffic, city planning, construction materials, hydraulics, etc.It is believed that in this context, universities have an important role to play, reaching out to the community. It is very important to encourage secondary school students (the main target in this proposal), their parents and teachers to visit higher education institutions and their laboratories, supporting schools efforts to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage as well as to address all students from the lowest to the highest end of the academic spectrum. The fulfillment of this role requires the University to develop strategies to invite the community to learn about its activities and goals and opening campus facilities to interested visitors. To make these facilities more attractive it is important to reflect on the most appropriate communication strategies and prepare the necessary materials – experiences with the participation of visitors, videos, interactive constructions, written materials, virtual reality models, etc. This project aims to develop an “educational laboratory” that can be deployed in different countries and in different environments, both inside and outside the participant universities' facilitiesThis “educational laboratory”, built in partnership in three universities can be adapted or replicated in other countries and institutions. This project include interactive equipments, and digital platforms (BIM and QR code format). The laboratory should foster the development of pedagogical strategies and general teaching knowhow, and the sharing of teamwork experiences. This project can be extended to other interested parties, in different countries with different construction techniques and needs regarding local climatic conditions (building solutions cannot be simply replicated across geographical borders regardless of climatic contexts), traditional techniques (each country has a specific culture and history in terms of techniques usually used in constructions) and available resources. Costs and legislation are also very specific and must be considered in the project. These differences will be crucial to show results under different existing conditions and to assess the importance of adapting approaches to each local environment. Different configurations for learning materials and approaches will be tested, leading to a virtual information repository that can be accessed by any student regardless of his/her location, allowing results to be compared, different scenarios to be tested and even different local prototypes to be visited and understood, underlining the requirement to adapt engineering solutions to local needs.Taking "hands-on" experiences and the digital platforms like BIM and QR codes will be an innovative way of transmit the different roles of Civil Engineering in a closer language to the youngsters, supporting schools in their efforts to guide secondary students' interests and decisions regarding higher education.
Civil Engineering is a field that is proving to be particularly sensitive to the dynamics of the labour market in construction. It has become noticeably less popular in countries such as Portugal, Greece, Croatia (and other European Countries) where employment levels for Civil Engineers have dropped significantly, after the economic crisis. Among other engineering branches, Civil Engineering seems to be conservative as its tools are oblivious to the general public. Indeed, IT tools such as 3D simulation, BIM or VR are used in Civil Engineering companies every day. This conjuncture provides a distorted image of Civil Engineering for pre-university students, in particular to those who are more driven towards high-tech fields, and therefore end up losing interest in this area. This is a very problematic context as Civil Engineering is present in everyday life and it is a fundamental profession to develop and maintain our infrastructures, indeed a requisite for sustaining life as we have become used to: buildings, roads, traffic, city planning, construction materials, hydraulics, etc. It is believed that in this context, universities have an important role to play, reaching out to the community and motivating pupils towards this area. The BIGmachine project pretends to change the perception of civil engineering to the pupils and main public, explaining its role in the development of our cities, its competences and the most modern and high-tech tools used. To accomplish these, the project intended to: talk to pre-university students through the technologies involved in Civil Engineering; reveal the complexities of the infrastructures involved in a building; support schools’ efforts to tackle early school leaving (ESL) inviting pupils and teachers to visit higher education institutions and their laboratories. These objectives were achieved by the creation of an “educational laboratory” with low-tech interactive demonstrative equipment, the development of pedagogical activities gathering hands-on with virtual technologies, and the creation of a virtual information repository. The main activities undertaken during the project were to achieve the completion of the project results. The IO1 BIGmachine house is an open laboratory to test different building components solutions, composed by a 2,4m cubic wood structure and a 0,70m cubic cell box where each panel is tested. The IO2 BIM models, a set of different immersive VR and AR games and environments that were built using BIM in Civil Engineering tasks. In IO3 interactive equipment, such as an AR Sandbox and the low-tech experimental equipment, were designed and produced to show different areas of Civil Engineering. The QR Codes library, IO4 is a repository of online content about actual construction systems using this technology, which provided activities where pupils would access online content to describe construction solutions that can be found in their everyday environments. In the supportive platform IO5, the site and the wiki gather all the elements produced in the project. Finally, IO6 eBook all the information of activities and manuals is collected to be disseminated among the target audience and other universities. There are long-term benefits for the pre-university communities and for universities. For pre-university communities, all the materials produced can be used in high schools as a tool in various STEM subjects. Taking "hands-on" experiences together with digital platforms like BIM, VR and QR codes are innovative ways of transmitting and exploring the different roles of Civil Engineering in a language which should be familiar and attractive to youngsters, supporting schools in their efforts to guide pupils' interests and decisions regarding higher education and prevent the school early leaving. For universities the material produced will facilitate the interaction with High-School communities: the “educational laboratory” can be adapted or replicated in other countries and institutions and is available to be used by schools. This project allows to present new and attractive teaching techniques and tools to the staff of Civil Engineering departments and attract more and better high-school graduates to the field of Civil Engineering, identifying and presenting the full range of activities of the profession. UP is one of the largest higher education in Portugal, best positioned in national and international rankings. Civil engineering in UP has been the first choice in the country for pupils interested in this course. AUTh is the largest public University in Greece in the Greece top places. Civil engineering is one of its most prestigious courses in Greece. UZagreb is the oldest and biggest in South- Eastern Europe. Civil Engineering is the oldest of its kind in Croatia. Coming from a similar back ground, the three universities proposed to enhance and explain the roll of Civil Engineering building our society.