By Emily Black
A team of five students earns first place in the Residential Construction Management Competition.
The NAHB student competition was held at the 2018 International Builders’ Show in Orland, FL. The opportunity to apply the lessons from the classroom to the real world of residential design drew 56 teams from across the country to participate. Each team had to follow strict guidelines from the design criteria through to the final working drawings and estimates. The residential design projects were presented in front of a panel of judges who were residential building industry professionals.
“Chief Architect gave us the competitive advantage that we were looking for and we were crowned National Champions,” says Alan Smith, the associate professor/program director for the State University of New York at Delhi‘s Residential Construction program.
SUNY Delhi team presenting to the judges.
“We have been competing in the Residential Construction Management Competition for the last 4 years. We are given rough floor plans and we need to provide working plans, an estimate, and a schedule. In our short time we have been having encouraging results, top 5 a couple times and top ten the rest. But I was looking for the top prize.
“So while walking through the Builder Show last year, I happened upon the Chief Architect booth, saw the demo and was impressed. I thought that Chief Architect could give us the boost we needed to get to the top. I explained to the sales rep who I was and what I wanted to do and he gave me a full version demo to try out. While I was trying it out, I realized all the benefits and how user-friendly it was.
“When we were putting our team together, I made the push for our team to move away from AutoCAD and go with Chief Architect. We purchased the student version and completed the plans using it without much instruction from faculty. I encouraged the students to use the how-to videos as they were informative for me. We were going to use this as a test, to see if we should be teaching the Chief Architect program as part of our curriculum.”
Join us in congratulating the SUNY Delhi team for their great achievement!
Winning Design
State University of New York Delhi accepting their first place trophy at the 2018 Awards Ceremony in Orlando.
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