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Project-Based Construction Education

JAMES B. POCOCK and PETER A. RIDILLA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, United States Air Force Academy

Introduction This paper describes project-based education as applied in two construction management courses at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Both courses are for senior-level civil and environmental engineering students. One of the courses is a construction management elective and the other is a required capstone course for students majoring in both civil and environmental engineering.

Construction Management Elective The elective course fulfills one of two curriculum “senior design options”. These design options allow students the opportunity to emphasize structural, geotechnical, environmental and/or construction engineering. “Construction Project Management” is taught from the constructor’s perspective. Along with traditional topics such as cost estimating, scheduling and safety, the course examines construction methods, materials and famous construction failures.

Students work in teams of two or three on a semester-long project in which they must plan the construction of a real construction project. They find and select projects advertised for bid on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Tri-Service Solicitation Network 1 (http://tsn.wes.army.mil/, see Figure 1). The Tri-Service Solicitation Network (TSN) allows the students to choose between hundreds of construction projects advertised for bid by the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The students then request a CD containing project specifications and drawings. Using these documents, the student teams complete a series of four assignments in quantity take-off, cost estimating and scheduling. At the end of the semester, the students correct and compile their work into a project binder and give a final presentation on their results. They also analyze the project design, identifying potential problem areas and opportunities for innovative construction. In the project scenario, each student team is a construction contractor preparing to compete for a contract award.

The first assignment is a quantity take-off of all the concrete in the project, or for large projects, the concrete in one section of the project. Next, the students perform a quantity take-off of all the project’s floor finishes. The cost estimate assignment is in two parts. First the teams estimate the overall cost of their projects based on cost per square foot, and adjust it for location and project size. Then using their quantity take-off results, they develop a detailed cost estimate for concrete. In the scheduling assignment, the students use the specifications and drawings to generate a list of 25-30 major construction activities covering the total construction process. They then use project scheduling software to create a critical path method schedule showing relationships between construction activities, activities on the critical path, and activity early and late start and finish dates.

Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2002, American Society for Engineering Education

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Ridilla, P., & Pocock, J. (2002, June), Project Based Construction Education Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--10260