BCM Community Service Based Learning

Recently approximately 15 students for Builing Construction Management went to The Grove House  to build an interior wood frame wall. Grove House is a non-profit organization that provides residental assistance to adults with developmental and acquired disabilities. Construction firms supporting the BCM student effort included Morales Construction Co., Lumber Unlimited, Kirbyco Builders, and Genesis Insulation.  

 

 

Dr. John Martin, BCM Chair, along with BCM students at Grove House.

Sigma Lambda Chi 

The UNF Chapter of International Honor Society in Construction, Sigma Lambda Chi (SLC), inducted 13 new members in April 2006. The inducted Building Construction Management students are recognized for their academic achievements. Dr. Mag Malek serves as the Advisor to the UNF SLC Chapter.

 

BCM Study Abroad 

Dr. David Lambert and Dr. Mag Malek took 18 BCM students to New York City and Quebec to study various types of construction and architecture.  

 

CCEC STUDENTCO-OPS & INTERNS

CCEC encourages students to participate in a co-op or internship as part of their educational experience. Ms. Connie Ellis serves as the Career Services focal point in helping to place CCEC students. Approximately 125 students are participating in a co-op or internship in Spring 2006.

CIVIL ENGINEERING

STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITIONS

American Society of Civil Engineering

Thirty two students from the Civil Engineering academic program participated in various student competitions at the American Society of Civil Engineering Regional Meeting held at the University of Florida, April 6-8, 2006. The UNF Civil Engineering students placed 5^th overall. Specific event awards were:

5th Plan Reading

4th Environment

4th Professional Paper

3rd Concrete Cylinder

2nd Steel Bridge

1st Steel Bridge, Efficiency

2nd Steel Bridge, Stiffness

2nd Steel Bridge, Construction Speed

2nd Steel Bridge, Aesthetics

2nd Steel Bridge, Construction Economy

2nd Steel Bridge, Lightness

 

UNF CONCRETE CANOE  

 

OFF TO THE RACES & IT FLOATS

 

 

UNF STEEL BRIDGE

 

 

FLORIDA REGION BOTBALL STUDENT COMPETITION 

Ten Middle Schools and High Schools competed at the March 18 Florida Region Botball Student Design Competition held on the UNF campus. CIS faculty assisting in the student competition were Dr. Charles Winton, Dr. Behrooz Seyed-Abbassi, Ms. Katharine Brown, Dr. Yap Chua, Ms. Lisa Jamba-Joyner, and Mr. Ronald Zucker.

Students Setting Up for the Robot Competition 

 

Student Robots in Action

 

Episcopal High…The Winning Team

 

SPRING BREAK FOR UNF STUDENTS 

A student in the Building Construction Management program, organized a field trip for approximately 15 UNF students to spend spring break in New Orleans helping with the hurricane restoration effort. This effort is being coordinated under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity.

CCEC EMPLOYERS SHOWCASE 

The College held its annual job fair, the CCEC Employers Showcase on February 22, 2006 at the University Center. Companies and organizations participating included:

 

Danis Construction                     Hardin Construction                    R. J. Griffin & Co.

LENNAR                                   FL Dept. of Transportation           HDR Engineering

Goodrich Corp.                          U. S. Gypsum                           David Weekly Homes

Williams Company                     Robins & Morton Group              PBS & J

Vestcor Construction                  The Stellar Group                       Brasfield & Gorrie

Aerotek Inc.                               Ralph Whitehead Assoc.            CitiStreet          

Woodside Communities              Batson-Cook Co.                       Prosser Hallock Inc.

Taylor Engineering                     HNTB Corp.                               James A. Cummings Inc.

Dana B. Kenyon Co.                  W. Lorenz Surgical                    Whiting-Turner Contracting

Skanska USA Building Inc.         Group IV Construction                Elkins Constructors

Centex Homes                           Sauer Inc.                                 JEA

Barton Mallow                            Garney Companies                    Perry McCall Construction

M. M. Parrish Const.                  Drees Homes                            The Haskell Company

GSC Energy                              Superior Construction                 McVeigh & Magnum

Morrison Homes                        Coach Inc.                                 Sea Star Lines, LLC

Ghyabi & Assoc.                       Universal Engineering                 Builder’s First Source

Beazer Homes                           Delta Fountains                         Hardin Construction

TLC Engineering for Architecture                                     Gilbert Southern Co. Energy

Florida Department of Environmental Protection                            Golder Associates

Hubbard Atlantic Coast Asphalt Co.                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                       

Florida’s First Coast Manufacturing Innovation Partnership

Dr. Daniel Cox, PI, and Dr. Alexandra Schonning, Co-PI, secured National Science Foundation support to found the Florida’s First Coast Manufacturing Innovation Partnership research center. The UNF center provides expertise and research support to manufacturing companies in the First Coast region.

 

 

Dr. Daniel Cox, Associate Professor

Mechanical Engineering

  

 

Dr. Cox with students in the Florida’s First Coast Manufacturing     Innovation Partnership research laboratory.

2005 National Conference on Educational Robotics

This Conference is the concluding event for the Botball Educational Robotics Program presented by the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics.  The conference featured presentations from James McLurkin, MIT, on swarm robots, David Miller, University of Oklahoma, on the next Martian Lander, and David Lavery, NASA, on the current status of the Spirit and Opportunity robots on Mars.  Conference highlights included the national Beyond Botball robotics competition and the international Botball robotics competition.  About 50 teams from across the US were on hand along with teachers and robotics professionals.  The conference events were webcast from UNF supported by a mirror site at NASA in California. 

 

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                 Dr. Judy Solano, Chair of the Department of Computer Information and Sciences, providing helpful hints to Beyond Botball competitors.

Computer Programming Competition 

The UNF student chapter of the Association of Computing Machines (ACM) participated in the ACM Southeast Programming Contest held on Saturday, October 28 at Georgia Southern University and University of South Alabama. The UNF ACM student chapter fielded two three-person student teams to participate in the ACM Southeast Programming Contest. The student programming competition included 69 teams from 31 universities. Dr. Behrooz Seyed-Abbassi and Dr. Yap Chua serve as Faculty Advisors to the UNF ACM student chapter.

UNF teams placed 26th place (4 problems solved) and 60th place (1 problem solved)

A complete listing of the results can be found at:

http://jharris2.mat.georgiasouthern.edu/Progcontest/summary.html

 

2006 UNF ACM Programming Competition Teams

UNF School of Computing Students with Faculty Advisor Dr. Seyed-Abbassi 

UNF BCM Students Compete in Regional Design Competition

Eighteen Building Construction Management (BCM) students divided into three separate teams recently participated in a Transformational Learning Opportunity by competing in the 2006 Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Region II Student Competition and Faculty Conference.  The competition was held October 25 – 27, 2006 in Charlotte, NC.

The student teams were accompanied by three University of North Florida (UNF) BCM faculty members, Dr. Beyong Lim, Mr. James Sorce, and Dr. Michael Whelan, who were the designated coaches for the heavy-civil, design/build, and commercial divisions respectively.  Sponsors of the three student competition areas were Kiewit Corporation (heavy-civil), Pizzagalli Construction (design/build), and Rodgers Builders, Inc. (commercial). 

The annual competition is sponsored jointly by the Associated Schools of Construction and the local Association of General Contractors (AGC) chapter (in this case, the Carolinas AGC).  Students from construction education programs located throughout Region II (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) compete by preparing and presenting construction proposals for consideration by the sponsors.  Student teams must demonstrate their proficiency in the topic areas of cost estimating, construction scheduling, value engineering, safety programs, and project management, as well as verbal presentation skills, to compete successfully.  While the UNF teams all received significantly positive feedback regarding their performance, they were unable to place in the top two positions in any of the divisions.

Next year’s, as well as the 2008, the competition will be held in Jacksonville, FL, and will be sponsored jointly by ASC and the AGC of Greater Florida.  Sponsors for this year’s UNF teams included AGC of Greater Florida, Batson-Cook Company, R. J. Griffin & Company, Sauer Incorporated, Skanska USA Building Inc., as well as the UNF Department of Building Construction Management.

UNF Commercial Team members 

 

Design-Build Team members In the background, some of the multitudes of students from other schools who attended the competition.

 

Heavy/Civil Team members

FIRST

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

FIRST is an organization with the aim to increase the interest in science and technology among our youth. Each year FIRST organizes a high school robotics and a Lego Mindstorms competition for younger competition kids. FIRST tries to make kids value education, science, and technology in place of pop culture. (http://www.firstfloridaregional.org/ )

 

Dr. Alexandra Schonning, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has served as a judge, a judge coordinator and a member of the organizing committee for FIRST competitions.

 

 

Alexandra Schonning

FIRST Robotic Competition

PROJECT GEO 

Geotechnical Engineering Earth Science Outreach was developed by Dr. Nick Hudyma and Mr. Robert Smith, an honors earth science educator at Terry Parker High School (TPHS) in Jacksonville Florida. Project GEO officially started during the fall of 2003. It involved seven honors earth science students working on three projects developed by Dr. Hudyma and Mr. Smith. The students met at UNF on Saturday mornings and worked on their projects for 3 to 4 hours under the guidance of Dr. Hudyma and Mr. Smith. The mentoring program has been continued every semester since its inception.

 

Nick Hudyma

 

 

Project GEO high school students in lab.

UNF – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (BCBS) Partnership

Dr. Ron King is the Principal Investigator for a three-year $240,000 grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. The UNF - BCBS partnership originated in 2001 with the initial three-year agreement funded at $50,000 per year. Students in Computer Information and Sciences (CIS) academic program work on computing applications of interest to BCBS. The manager of the BCBS IT office, Mr. Scott Hartsfield, notes “. . . this educational collaboration helps develop students by presenting them with real problems”. 

 

Since the inception of the partnership, CIS students have spent over 10,000 hours in research, development and deployment of computer health related applications.  Upon completion of their CIS degree, six CIS students have gone to work for BCBS. Twenty four have used the practical experience they received at BCBS to find IT jobs in the Jacksonville area.

 

 

Dr. Ron King

 

Dr. Ron King with CIS Students

 

CCEC Advanced Weather Information Systems (AWIS) Research Laboratory

Dr. J. David Lambert along with Dr. Pat Welsh, and Dr. Behrooz Seyed-Abbassi are the principal faculty researchers in the AWIS Research Laboratory.  AWIS research is focused on mesoscale weather information networks providing high resolution spatial-time weather measurements for predicting high accuracy weather forecasts. This type information is utilized by Emergency Management in an event situation. Other applications include construction research, environmental management such as a chemical spills, water management and conservation, and agricultural management. UNF has become a leader in high resolution real time weather research.

 

 

Dr. J. David Lambert, Assistant Professor

 

 

Dr. J. David Lambert with graduate students in the

CCEC Advanced Weather Information Systems Research Laboratory