2023. May 05.
BTC week
BTC week at the Construction Information Technology Engineering MSc program
Students (10 foreign and 8 Hungarian this year) on the newly launched MSc program will focus on a wide range of areas of digitalisation in the construction industry, including sensor network construction and application, programming, BIM, complex building instrumentation and building services systems, sustainability and energy efficiency. In the spring semester, the 2nd semester of the course, students participated in a one-week internship at the BME Knowledge Center (BTC) in Balatonfüred. In the fall semester, they had the opportunity to install microcontroller-based sensors in different rooms of the BTC building and to collect and record a variety of data using cloud solutions. They also had the opportunity to study the building structures, building electrical and mechanical systems of the BTC in a field trip.
In addition to the all-purpose building of the BTC, the purpose of the one-week internship was to get students away from their studies and life in Budapest and to focus on solving certain problems in teams for days. The BTC days were very intensive, typically starting before 9am and finishing after 6pm, with meals being provided in the BTC - the building was fully equipped in this respect (kitchen with microwave, coffee machine and fridge). The students were organised into teams, each team had a civil engineer, some teams also involved electrical engineers and architects. A strong emphasis was placed on documentation, and in addition to the final report on Friday, they held part-reports on Tuesday and Thursday, documenting all their activities with pictures and videos. We are confident that what we have learned during the BTC week has not only developed competences that can be used in industry, but will also serve as the basis for many TDK and diploma theses. The data collected during the BTC week will be processed, analysed and evaluated during the rest of the semester.
The students were asked about their expectations at the beginning of the training and about their experiences at the end, and each student also participated in a short interview of 3-6 minutes to summarise their impressions. Without exception, they found this teaching methodology very useful, highlighting the effectiveness of the long concentration on one task in the learning process, the development of soft skills, especially teamwork and cooperation. The lecturers also found the BTC week very useful and effective, it was also an experience for them, and based on their experience, the relevant subjects will be developed in the fall semester, incorporating the students' feedback.
The students' work was mentored on site by 2-3 professors per day, with the emphasis on consultation support rather than continuous supervision. The accommodation of 18 students and 2 instructors and providing sensors and equipment for the measurements is expensive, but this was supported by the Faculty of Civil Engineering's partners committed to digitalisation in the construction industry, and we thank them for their help!
- KÉSZ Group
- Market Építő Zrt.
- NEO Properties Services Zrt.
We are confident that the BTC week’s outstandingly positive experiences will be incorporated as good practice into the training programmes of several education programs!
Tamás Lovas – Árpád Barsi – Balázs Nagy
