Courtesy NASA NASA puts up $2.25 million in prizes for tinkerers who develop solutions to three challenges to building on Mars with on-site material. Related Links: Air Force Research Lab Invests in 3D Printing Technology Development Advancing 3D Printing Capabilities Excite Construction Leader The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is offering $2.25 million in prize money for three competitions, all aimed at dramatically advancing 3D printing in three areas: dwelling design, printing aggregate and printing mechanism.NASA's Centennial Challenges Program, in partnership with America Makes, allots $50,000 of the prize money for the design of a habitat for astronauts on Mars.

BIM 360 Plan brings foremen into the lean-construction conversation by putting trade progress into their hands, allowing the trades to better schedule worker count.

Courtesy: SkySync SkySync migrates, copies and syncs files across multiple platforms and networks. A coming update will allow users to search and organize that data, as well. A Windows-based application that synchronizes files across cloud platforms, internal corporate networks and most data-storage systems is releasing a new version this summer that allows administrators to manage operations at a desktop level. A second update, scheduled for release late this year, makes data on all the platforms searchable.Joseph Lombardi, a superintendent with Boston-based Shawmut Design and Construction, was introduced to SkySync when his company won a $200-million contract and needed to expand the technology it

Courtesy Procore technologies inc. Chris Karcher, software engineer at Procore Technologies Inc., writes down some user-submitted product ideas that will be built into a prototype of the company's budget-forecasting tool. Related Links: No App for That? Build It Already a User? Sign up for Procore's API Two hundred companies on May 4-6 attended a sold-out Procore Technologies Inc. user conference at the construction-management firm's headquarters in Carpinteria, Calif. Users lined up to learn about new releases."I wanted this to be different than any other conference by eliminating all the selling that usually goes on," says Tooey Courtemanche, CEO and founder

A new feature from a construction communication software automatically produces a daily report at the same time every day, compiled from the field notes of superintendents, foremen and subcontractors.“To stay an extra hour at the end of the day to compile your observations that you might not accurately remember, is silly,” says Chad Falgout, a general superintendent Abbott Construction, Seattle, who has worked as a super for 20 years. Falgout uses the new daily-reports function from the FieldLens, New York, as he walks the job site. He says he makes 10 to 20 observations during his 8- to 10-hour days,

Related Links: FAA 333 Petitions Commercial Drone Operators Take Flight for Construction As the number of firms approved to commercially operate unmanned aircraft systems in the U.S. increases, so do these companies' UAS demands, leading some to seek experienced European manufacturers or partner with automated-flight firms.Getting approval under Section 333 of the 2012 Federal Aviation Administration's Modernization and Reform Act isn't the easiest thing, says Russ Metzler, director of UAS services at Asymmetric Technologies, Columbus, Ohio. "It's not egregious but a little frustrating," he says. "You search the 333 document and find the parts that apply to you and justify

Photo Courtesy of John Linden New construction at The Wallis in Beverly Hills included the 500-seat proscenium-arch theater. Photo Courtesy of John Linden Coupling the modernist-style new construction to the preserved 1930s U.S. Post Office required laser-scanned 3D models and precision work. Related Links: Best of the Best 2014 The Wallis The Annenberg Foundation During construction of a modernist-style, 500-seat theater to adjoin a preserved and repurposed 1930s U.S. Post Office, the project team was challenged with fitting together the structures, both physically and aesthetically.Best Projects’ judges say the resulting performing-arts venue and arts-education center in the heart of Beverly

Related Links: Intellinote Intellinote's Evernote Importer A cloud-based enterprise collaboration system released a new field management tool that allows users to edit, annotate and share service requests between the field and the office with iOS devices and desktop computers."We look to have a holistic environment that allows people to get work done in conjunction with their existing tools and processes," says Tony Lopresti, CEO of Intellinote, Reston, Va. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel."By not recreating programs such as Adobe Acrobat, Google Docs and other entrenched software and, instead, piggybacking on and extending their capabilities, Intellinote's Field Service Management

Photo courtesy of Getable Getable has grown its service area, bankroll and app functionality. Related Links: Is That Old Loader Worth More Than You Thought? Getable: Official Site On Feb. 25, Getable, an on-demand equipment-rental app previously available only in California, announced its nationwide availability, a $5-million round of venture-capital financing and an update to its app."To date, Getable was the third-party rental-equipment aap. Now, it is the equipment app and will track 100% of equipment on a jobsite," says Tim Hyer, CEO Getable, San Francisco, about the app update that allows users to manage all equipment from within the

Courtesy: Stockpile Reports Inc. A model of a 100,000-cu-yd pile, made from iPhone video. Related Links: Stockpile Reports The Texas Dept. of Transportation has benchmarked and adopted an iPhone app to measure its stockpiles. The app works by uploading a video of the stockpile to a cloud server, which turns the data into a 3D model to calculate its volume.Stockpile Reports Inc., Redmond, Wash., developed an app of the same name for aggregate suppliers measuring stockpiles 3,000 cu yd and larger, says Mark Bradshaw, TxDOT procurement administration manager. "They documented accuracy of plus or minus 2% on these large stockpiles"