Designing Construction 4.0 Activities for AEC Classrooms

Abstract

This article describes the outcomes of the development of the project MATES to STEAM. The project is aimed at integrating Construction 4.0 content to a recently started new degree on Technologies on Civil Engineering. This integration is underpinned by the creation of STEAM-rich activities that can complement such degree. The philosophical design of these activities followed three requirements: (i) the activities should infuse Construction 4.0-related technologies, (ii) the activities should foster motivation among students with a STEAM vision by-design and (iii) the activities should be designed with a hardware-software independent perspective (open-source, accessible, affordable). Cornerstone and capstone projects as well as a set of workshops represent the demonstrators of these activities. All these demonstrators are knitted together in a single path in which an educational attempt to fill the identified Construction 4.0 gaps is proposed. The STEAM perspective provides completeness to the whole development. During the last two years, the project was developed and the design, the development and implementation of several demonstrators were completed. In the years to come, a systematic deployment and analysis of such demonstrators is expected when a full implementation of the new degree of Technologies in Civil Engineering will be addressed.

Keywords

• construction 4.0
• STEAM
• education
• digital twins
• 3D printing
• BIM