ConstructAI Hackathon: Building an AI tool for the construction sector!

How does artificial intelligence help construction companies make sustainable choices faster? Students from institutions including THUAS and ROC Mondriaan recently worked hard to answer this exact question. During the 'ConstructAI' hackathon, an initiative by the HAAI Campus and MKB Digiwerkplaats, participants developed smart software for construction practices in just one day.

Multidisciplinary exploration 

The event at the TechCampus Lab brought together students with completely different backgrounds. Knowledge of software development, finance, and construction engineering blended beautifully in multidisciplinary teams. This mix of technical, analytical, and sector-specific insights led to surprising perspectives. Beforehand, the participants received a crash course in AI tools and development methods from Mikolaj Wichrowski (Emplex).

The challenge from Dijkxhoorn 

Innovation manager Hidde Luzac from Dijkxhoorn Bouwgroep challenged the students. This company sees enormous opportunities in the high-quality reuse of materials, but manual analysis takes an enormous amount of time. The assignment sounded ambitious: develop an AI-driven tool that searches complete construction specifications for materials, and then matches them with available circular alternatives from a supplier database.

The experience of master's student Bas Vogel 

Bas Vogel, a student in the Master Next Level Engineering program, participated through the Smart Sustainable Manufacturing research group. With a bachelor's degree in Construction Engineering under his belt, this event immediately appealed to him. "Normally I don't get too excited about these kinds of days, but this perfectly matched my interests: construction and the rise of AI," Bas shares enthusiastically.

He enjoyed the dynamics. "I started without high expectations. Ultimately, collaborating with all kinds of different students, from MBO to master's level and even international students, proved to be incredibly valuable. Everyone brought their own perspective to the problem." The team made spectacular progress. "We worked extremely hard until half past four in the afternoon and managed to create a prototype that was already eighty to ninety percent functional. The fact that we succeeded in doing this in just one day completely surprised me."

The power of the HAAI Campus 

The hackathon perfectly illustrates the ambition of the HAAI (The Hague Applied AI Campus). This regional partnership connects knowledge institutions such as THUAS, ROC Mondriaan, Leiden University, and TU Delft with the business community. By having students devise solutions for current practical issues now, we are preparing them for the labor market of tomorrow. At the same time, companies gain access to the very latest AI knowledge.

Bas sees this absolute added value for the future. "For companies, it often remains a struggle to figure out how to optimally use AI. If we, as students, dive into this now, we will have a significant edge later on. I will soon start working at a construction company and I definitely want to continue this AI exploration there!"