At the beginning of the 6th and 7th semesters of the Bachelor's degree programme in Surveying and Geoinformatics, students can choose from various block courses entitled ‘Current Topics in Geomatics (AKG)’. One of these is the AKG Digital Construction Site course taught by Prof. Alexander Beetz and Prof. Gerrit Austen. In addition to lectures and practical exercises, the programme also included an excursion to MTS Schrode AG.
After a friendly welcome with coffee and buttered pretzels, Mr Schrode gave an overview of the software products used by the company, such as the 3D plan manager or the central data storage system Infrakit, which can be used very easily on the construction site via a smartphone. MTS Schrode AG also emphasises the importance of sensible and structured data preparation.
The importance of building information modelling in municipal traffic routes and civil engineering was also highlighted. "SimsalaBIM" was the magic word here!
But what were the students most looking forward to? Driving excavators, of course...
Construction machine control is a key area of application for excavators. After a brief explanation of the various components and installed sensors, the students were allowed to climb into the driver's cab and move the machine themselves. The specialist staff demonstrated how the recording and marking out of points with the excavator works in practice today.
In another exercise, the GNSS rover and the software from MTS Schrode AG were tested when carrying out topographical surveys and calculating digital terrain models. The students were allowed to survey the surrounding terrain and create a DTM themselves.
After lunch together, Mr Schrode gave the students a tour of the factory and the company premises and provided an interesting insight into the various areas of activity at MTS Schrode AG.
After some information on data processing, the excursion was rounded off with a summary of the overall process and a round of feedback in a pleasant setting.
The students would like to express their sincere thanks to Mr Rainer and Mr Lukas Schrode and all those involved at MTS Schrode AG for this very interesting and instructive day, which was fun for all participants and gave them a new insight into construction machine control and BIM. A big thank you also goes to Prof Dr Beetz, who made this special excursion day possible as part of the AKG's "Digital Construction Site" programme.