| Summary: |
Educational Lab Big Machine, ELBigMAC is an ERASMUS + project developed by the University of Porto in Portugal, the University of Zagreb in Croatia and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, with a main objective of disseminating Civil Engineering activities among the pre-university students. The main vision is that a House is, in fact, a Big Machine with different layouts and forms, and with this project, is intended to demonstrate the different steps that are necessary to make it, from design, to research, to construction until its performance. The activities proposed to the students cover the different phases. The design phase activities includes building physical models, Virtual Reality models, BIM modelling, augmented reality sandbox and others. In the research phase the students build prototypes of construction systems and test them in the University laboratories. To understand the construction phases the students are also invited to participate in sustainable construction workshops, and then test in the Big Machine House, the performance of their solutions. As an educational laboratory this is an innovative way of teaching / learning about Civil Engineering as well as a tool for supporting High schools in their efforts to guide secondary students' interests and decisions regarding higher education. |