The Future's Bright

It was a daunting task: carry out a design appraisal and value engineering exercise, produce a construction master programme, labour resource histogram, site layout and team organisation chart and present it. All in four hours.

"They were doing a job which would have terrified a professional team," says Nigel Finn, senior project manager with Constructing Excellence who helped design the CIOB's 2006 Student Challenge and was also one of the three judges.

But that didn't daunt the four dynamic young people who won the challenge. "We thought it was very achievable," says Paul Brennan from the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland (WIT) who, together with team mates Caitriona Burke, Philip Ryan and Craig O'Brien, lifted the trophy and took away a £200 cheque each.

The competition was based on a real design and build project, a warehouse built by R G Carter Colchester. The students received an information pack which included details of the actual project and had access to CIOB's library.

Despite the extent of the challenge it wasn't unrealistic, claims Finn - who judged the competition with Constructing Excellence's Canute Simpson and RG Carter Colchester's Saul Humphrey - in that a client might come to you asking for a price and suggested layout before a meeting with a potential funder.

Irish competition

Eight teams in all, who had battled through regional heats, arrived for the final on 24 March. The other competitors were Inverness College, London South Bank University, City of Sunderland College, Coleg Sir Gar, Omagh College, the Royal School of Military Engineering and Colchester Institute. WIT had been toughened up by the Irish competition in Limerick where they had been bombarded with questions from a panel of judges.

WIT and the second- and third-placed teams from the Royal School of Military Engineering and Colchester Institute jostled for the title. WIT did particularly well on the organisation chart and the programming. The other two teams shone in other areas.

Waterford's success was based on teamwork. "One thing that they had was that there were no egos; nobody wanted to dominate the group. The team worked extremely well," observes John Carney, the lecturer who persuaded them to enter the competition. They even had a reserve team member, Eoin Lonergan, standing by.

Burke explains that teamwork has been drummed into them from day one on their course at WIT, which meant they already had a routine for dealing with the challenge: "For each task, we go away individually and look at it for five minutes. Then we brainstorm it and put any experience we have on paper. The person with the most experience leads the task and allocates others to go away and fill in the information gaps."

So O'Brien, who is studying Construction Economics rather than Construction Management and Engineering like the other three, oversaw all things financial, Burke did programming, Brennan did design and Ryan site layout and organisation.

I want to go into development. eventually I would like to
be the next Donald Trump

Philip Ryan, WIT

"The only thing none of us knew anything about was the location because it was in England," says Burke, "So we had no idea about the soil or topography."

The documents and presentation they produced certainly look the part, presented on WIT-headed paper handling topics from safety to sustainability to company ethos.

Lost in conversion

Burke had previously worked on a shed project, but programming was a big challenge, especially since they had to make do with an Excel spreadsheet programme rather than the specialist software they have used at the Institute. "We had just three quarters of an hour to produce something which normally takes six weeks," says Burke. But they overcame this hurdle and came out with a programme which Finn says was "near perfect".

The only hiccup was when they got a bit mixed up with their currencies. They were thinking in euros rather than pounds and forgot to do the conversion, swapping the euro sign for a pound sign in their haste. But even doing that their costs still came in the middle when compared with others.

Finn says environmental issues featured in many of the solutions, with several groups suggesting the use of solar power on the shed's roof. WIT's suggestion was the use of Glulam beams rather than steel. Brennan, who had worked with these during his placement, argued that the lower weight of Glulam needed to achieve the same strength as steel would save on foundations, transport and erection.

"It was an innovative idea," says Finn. "I don't know if it's cheaper or 100% possible, but it showed they were thinking outside the box."

The four students were preparing for final-year examinations as CM went to press. Burke hopes to get into planning and project management, while Brennan wants to get into construction management and might go to London.

Ryan is an aspiring property developer and has suitably ambitious aspirations. "When I started the course back in the first year I was into construction and contracting. Now I want to go into development: doing the deals rather than the actual contracting. Eventually I would like to be the next Donald Trump."

That's the spirit!