Abstract:

Several educational activities at the Faculty of Civil Engineering (FCE) of the Technical University in Košice have been focused on developing digital skills related to the current evolutional phase of the Industrial revolution referred to as Industry 4.0. Organizing student competitions, either independently or with a specific focus on bachelor`s and master`s thesis projects, is one of the ways to draw students` attention to currently preferred adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in construction projects.

Two packets of student competitions, centred on involvement of BIM tools and applications in design phase of construction projects, are analysed in the submitted paper.

The first packet of the competitions took place in the period from 2008 to 2011 and the second one, essentially renewed packet of competitions took place in the period from 208 to 2020. The identical main objective of both packets of competitions was to support the competence of the FCE graduates for their successful entry into positions of civil engineers in the digital age of construction sector.

The difference between two packets of competitions was mainly in the way these competitions were conducted and in the way of student works evaluation. Most appreciated 3D BIM-models that were developed by gifted students involved in the second packet of competitions are now deposited in digital library of virtual construction projects and will then be used in educational process of courses aimed at BIM application in construction lifecycle. As 3D BIM-models are for both groups of stakeholders in practice (designers and investors) highly valued, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain their works for use as case studies in teaching. Therefore, the final competition pieces of gifted students have formed a valuable part of the digital library of virtual construction projects that is usable in the educational process within the professional courses of Civil engineering studies. This inestimable benefit and other results and gains of the student competitions are analysed and described in the paper.

Keywords:

BIM skills, student competition, digital library, BIM-model.