Training Future Talent at the ALLPLAN Student Competition 2021

This year, ALLPLAN has held their annual ALLPLAN Student Competition, open to students from five countries, including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. This year, more than 300 students from 15 different university civil engineering faculties entered the 2021 competition, which was hosted by Baldinistudio, Baldinistudio International and the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Civil Engineering. The entries were narrowed down to 42 finalists, who competed for prizes such as laptops and tablets across a three-day event.

ALLPLAN has always promoted Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the digitalization of the construction industry. The competition helps achieve these goals, bringing these skills and knowledge to the next generation of architects and civil engineers. It also helps promote quality in design and increases the competitiveness of the students entering the industry by equipping them with the skills they will need. Finally, the competition acts as an excellent platform for connecting universities and creating a network of future architects and engineers.

The competition has three phases, the first of which consists of an online qualification exam. The questions test the students’ knowledge of BIM, and a grade of at least 80% is required to continue in the competition. The second phase is the hackathon. Hosted by university faculties, the students form teams of three and compete with other local teams across a three-day competition, with prizes for the winners. Finally, each winning team enters the regional competition, which is the third and final phase of the competition.

For the 2021 competition, 200 students passed the exam to enter the second phase, while 118 of these took part in the local hackathons.

The competition tests the students’ modeling skills and BIM knowledge. For the second phase, they were tasked with modeling a residential building according to the architectural drafts that were provided. Using ALLPLAN 2021, the students modeled a six-story building, which also included a flat roof formed from a reinforced concrete slab. In addition to the modeling, the students had to create the drawings for the building and derive the material quantities, as well as present their finished model to the judges. The prizes consisted of gift vouchers, a set of technical books, and a Bluebeam goodie bag.

For the regional hackathon and final phase of the competition, the finalists were asked to model a much more complex residential building. Although the building only featured two floors in this phase, the students were required to reinforce the entire building according to the instructions. The brief included a large number of specifications, including the floor height and total building height. In total, a gross area of 357m² needed to be designed and modeled, and the drawings and other documentation created for both the building and the reinforcement.

Across the three days, the students worked on their models and documentation, as well as attended several lectures by experts from both industry and academia. The competition culminated in an evening gala and awards ceremony, where the winners were announced. The winners included the Faculty for Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy from the University of Banja Luka in third place, the Faculty of Technical Sciences from Novi Sad in second place, and the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering from the University of Tuzla in first place. The prizes included a laptop for the first place winners, a tablet for second place, and Earbuds for the third place team. In addition, there were a number of other prizes from the various sponsors of the event.

This year’s student competition was a great success, with some innovative and well-thought-out designs. The University of Tuzla’s design won for its accuracy, comprehensiveness, and professionalism, which impressed the judges. While this year’s event has concluded, the ALLPLAN Student Competition 2022 is already in preparation and will begin in the spring of next year with the aim of including both civil engineering and architecture faculties.