Developing A Workable Construction Management Technology Senior Capstone Project At The University Of Maine

Creating a meaningful capstone experience in a construction education program is often a challenge. Most of these programs do not offer significant design courses or foster creation of a project from concept through the design cycle to actual construction completion. A capstone experience in construction management is best developed from the design stage through to the preconstruction phases. Our construction capstone focuses on having students work within four aspects of preconstruction typical for a project. Students are divided into working groups to form a contractor team. An actual unit price bid project is used that the teams bid, schedule, calculate layout, and decide the best effective methods for construction. Industry plays a significant role in the capstone course. Guest speakers come to class and discuss various aspects of construction including project management, material selection, and regulation. Public sector owners contribute plan and specification sets and come to the class to give an overview of the class project as in a typical prebid meeting. These owners come to the last class and judge the teams as to the practicality of individual team means and methods. This paper discusses the set up of the course that we use at the University of Maine. It defines the aspects of the preconstruction process that is used and discusses some aspects of the outside speaker program.