The Construction Technology Centre (CTCON), together with IES Valle del Segura, has launched the DIGILAB project, in which it participates together with organisations from Spain, Norway, Finland and Denmark. It is an international initiative funded by the ERASMUS+ programme and will last for 3 years, until the end of 2024. The aim is to teach students, both high school and technical university students, how to create and use the digital twins of their own schools or faculties.
A digital twin is a virtual, three-dimensional representation of a place, which can be used for many purposes, including educational purposes. Through them, technologies such as virtual reality can be used to visit places, handle objects, come into virtual contact with other people, etc. In other words, through this virtual space, which will be a faithful copy of a real existing space, such as the classroom or the pavilion of a secondary school, we can apply new technologies such as BIM (Building Information Modelling), 3D printing, augmented reality, drones, etc.
In the Region of Murcia, in addition to CTCON, with extensive experience in the digitisation of buildings and infrastructures, IES Valle del Segura, a pioneer in the creation and use of virtual environments and video games in secondary education in the Region of Murcia, and promoter of the idea at pre-university level, is a partner in the project.
The international partners of the DIGILAB project are NTNU University, Norway's largest university with 40,000 students and an expert in the use of lasers and scanners for the recreation of three-dimensional environments, the University of Vaasa, a reference in Finland in the application of virtual reality to student training, and the Danish university UCN, which will work on the creation of these "digital twins", as advanced as possible, introducing sensors and other sources of real-time information that connect the physical and virtual worlds.
The overall objective of DIGILAB is to achieve a double positive impact on the Region of Murcia in terms of digitalisation. On the one hand, to accelerate the use of three-dimensional technologies such as BIM and digital twins in the construction sector. On the other hand, by
another, to boost the digital training of secondary school students and future graduates, allowing them to acquire, in an enjoyable way, through video games, the skills to generate interest and familiarity with the digital professions of the future in the short term.
