Abstract:

During the years 2020 - 2021, students and lecturers have faced academical challenges like no other generation before them. One of the most important changes was the inability of attending construction sites due to the pandemic conditions. Using different communication technologies, we developed a virtual lab on construction site visits to keep the students updated in everything related to the direct application of structural design concepts.

After the pandemic restrictions were released, we have been using the experience obtained by keeping these virtual labs working. Sometimes, the construction site offers a limited attendance capacity so many students are not invited to be at the site, sometimes students are not close enough to the construction site, and other times, health or economic restrictions does not allow them to be at the site visit. This virtual construction site visit lab allows everybody interested to be an active participant of these activities.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the benefits obtained for the structural design learning process of these virtual construction sites lab.
Construction site visits has always been a highly valuable element of Civil Engineering programs. It allows students to visualize construction processes and translate the numerical activities studied in the classroom to tangible projects. With the pandemic and the stay-at-home guidelines, construction site visits have a positive distraction factor from reality, becoming an element that motivates the students to participate and divert themselves from the current situation, additionally to the academical benefits that the visits provides.

The purpose of this study is to present the results obtained by giving the students the opportunity of having an interactive, live-broadcast, virtual construction site visit without the necessity of actually being in the site. The purpose of the implementation of live streaming tools is to eliminate the one-way-talk, with the professor only speaking to himself. There has to be real-time interaction with the students in order to fulfill the emotional necessity of the student to feel as an active part of the activity, as well as granting him the advantages of making all of his questions in the moment they are presented and not later on, when both, the curiosity or the complete information, may be gone.

The capability of students to attend construction sites in contingency situations, is fundamental for the completion of the academic goals of the Civil Engineering curricula. It´s important that the students recognize this and the importance of the opportunity of experiencing these activities in challenging times.

Keywords:

Site visits, structural engineering, virtual labs.