WIT News

WIT students to represent Ireland at UK construction challenge Posted: Fri, March 19, 2010

A four-strong team from the Department of Civil & Construction Engineering at Waterford Institute of Technology has won through to represent Ireland at the Chartered Institute of Building Student Challenge finals in Ascot later this month.

The team – Gavin Ennis, Wexford; Michael Harty, Tipperary; Gerald Hoare, Kilkenny and Seamus Richardson, Limerick – won the Irish competition in Limerick with mentoring from Kevin Ryan, Anne-Marie O’Connor and John Carney.

The Waterford team beat off competition from across the Institute of Technology sector. The competition saw them given just four hours to produce a detailed written report responding to a scenario they were presented with at the start of the Irish final. Later, they had an hour to prepare a PowerPoint presentation.

The scenario dealt with contractual claims and insurance. It was prepared by James O’Brien, a loss adjustor and director of Cunningham Lindsey Ireland.

Having won through the gruelling final, the team will now participate in the overall final on Thursday, March 25. In addition, they received a trophy and €600 from Irish competition sponsors PJ Hegarty.

According to Ken Thomas, Head of Dept of Civil & Construction Engineering at WIT, “The CIOB competition allows participants apply their construction skills and knowledge to solving very practical scenarios of a type they will face in their professional careers. The added edge of doing this under time pressure and against competitors from other higher education institutions makes the learning all the more valuable. We now wish Gavin, Michael, Gerald and Seamus well in Ascot.

“Waterford Institute of Technology continues to offer opportunities for students across a range of construction and engineering disciplines and our graduates can be found in a very wide variety of professional settings in Ireland and overseas. Success in competitions such as the CIOB Student Challenge augurs well for this group of students.”

• The Department of Civil & Construction Engineering at Waterford Institute of Technology can be reached on (051) 845512 or cce@wit.ie