Constructionarium – a taste of real life engineering

Friday 15 June 2007
By Naomi Weston

Civil engineering students have been transformed into practising engineers this week by working on real life engineering projects at the annual Constructionarium event.

Over 80 students from Imperial College London have spent the week at the National Construction College in Norfolk. The students are completing their third year projects by building a range of scaled down versions of bridges, buildings, dams and other civil engineering projects.

The students took on the roles required for work on a construction site with responsibility for problem solving and decision making. Dr Sunday Popo-Ola, Research and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who is the leader of Imperial’s engineering teaching team at the event said: "The Constructionarium turns Imperial engineering students into engineering practitioners in a matter of five days and allows them to put their engineering theories into practice. They are able to negotiate contracts with real clients, manage skilled and unskilled labourers and deliver their project on time and to budget."

This year the four projects included building a version of the Millau Bridge spanning 20m, the concrete Kingsgate Bridge with a 10m span built in two halves on swivelling turntables, the vertical access shaft and the street-level weather canopy over the entrance to the new Naples Airport underground station and, new for this year, a four-storey version of the Gherkin in London.

Twenty six students were working on the Gherkin project, which was the largest team due to the amount of off-site prefabrication work necessary to construct the building. The group divided themselves up into three sub-groups, one to handle the off-site prefabrication of the light steel floor cassettes, another for erecting the diamond-shaped steel components for the outer shell and the other sub-group handling setting out and casting of the concrete footing which will support the building’s steel core.

The final day of the event on Friday 15 June sees the students being assessed on budget, methodology and timely completion on their final construction. The event will be attended by Nigel Griffiths MP, former Minister for Construction, and students from seven universities, including Cambridge and Leeds, and representatives from participating industry partners, who will come together to celebrate how the scheme has helped transform the civil engineering curriculum at undergraduate level.

Alison Ahearn, Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Centre for Educational Development, commented: "The Constructionarium is intended to let students see in practice where theory meets design meets construction. We knew that giving the students the chance to feel like engineers was important but we underestimated the effect it has on motivation: last year, 57% of students said they intended to be engineers before the Constructionarium. Afterwards, that figure leapt to 85% illustrating a clear win for students, College and industry."

This is the fifth year of the Constructionarium, which has become a national success. It was invented for Imperial's students by Imperial, Expedition Engineering, consulting design engineers, and John Doyle Construction Ltd, engineering contractors. Six other universities have got involved this year, namely Cambridge, Leeds, Liverpool, Northumbria, Greenwich and UCL. The universities attended the National Construction College on different weeks.

The team from Imperial running the Constructionarium event is a nominee in the inaugural Faculty of Engineering Teaching Awards. Alison Ahearn, Sunday Popo-Ola and Rebecca Naessens have been working on both the Imperial event and helping other universities get their own versions off the ground. With their partners, Expedition Engineering and John Doyle Construction Ltd, they ran a national workshop for universities and industry last December to explain the finer points of Constructionariums and how to prepare for them.