Bluefield State College - March News Releases

BSC Student Team Enters
“Google Sketchup”
Build Your Campus in 3D Competition

A “Center for Applied Research and Technology (CART) at Bluefield State College” student team is developing a three-dimensional model of the College’s Bluefield campus for entry in the Google SketchUp “Build Your Campus in 3D Competition.” The BSC student team includes (left-to-right) Pete Christoff, Johnny George, Jason McClure, Matt Peters, Elizabeth Hawkins, Pat Dove, and Dale East (not pictured—Ashley Roderick). The architectural and civil engineering technology students creating the BSC campus model will join student teams from several institutions of higher education throughout the United States, Canada, and France in the event.

(Bluefield)—A “Center for Applied Research and Technology (CART) at Bluefield State College” student team is developing a three-dimensional model of the College’s Bluefield campus for entry in the Google SketchUp “Build Your Campus in 3D Competition.” The architectural and civil engineering technology students creating the BSC campus model will join student teams from several institutions of higher education throughout the United States, Canada, and France in the event.

“This competition provides a valuable resource for creating virtual ‘real world’ experiences for our students,” noted Bruce Mutter, CART at BSC director. The 3D model of our campus should be very interesting, specifically because the ‘terraced hills’ upon which we are located differ significantly from the 3D renderings of campuses on flatter terrain. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first detailed SketchUp/Google Earth model of its kind to be developed in our area.”

Team CART students working under the direction of professors of architectural engineering technology Don Bury and Mutter include Pete Christoff, Patric Dove, Dale East, Johnny George, Elizabeth Hawkins, Jason McClure, Matthew Peters, and Ashlee Roderick. Their model will be submitted before the competition’s June 1, 2007 deadline, and finalists will be announced by July 10. The top 5-7 teams (chosen by a panel of experts) will win a three-day, expenses paid trip to Google’s Mountain View headquarters to participate in a workshop with 3D modeling experts from Google.

“In the literal ‘big picture,’ our students’ model could become the base digital 3D file that we use to continually improve the rendering for years to come,” Mutter summarized. Additional information about the Google SketchUp 3D Campus Competition can be accessed on the web at http://contest.sketchup.com

March 5, 2007