Your assignment: Make a tool to separate a tray of golf balls and wood blocks into two piles without touching them. Transfer the piles across an obstacle course of orange cones, and drop them into designated boxes. Hurry up! Don’t step outside the boundary lines, or you’ll lose points. Photo: DI/JON Morgan Some students fashioned a container to load wooden blocks, then carried it over the obstacles. Related Links: Learn More About Destination ImagiNation See Videos of the Chicago Regional Rally: Challenge 1 See Videos of the Chicago Regional Rally: Challenge 2 See Videos of the Chicago Regional Rally: Challenge

As organized labor heads into a potentially dismal negotiation season this year, unions received a big boost in February when President Barack Obama made good on his campaign promise to reverse the ban on project labor agreements for federally funded projects. As billions of dollars in federal work begins to filter out through the stimulus package, federal contracting agencies could opt to use project labor agreements on its major construction projects. Photo: AP/Wideworld Related Links: Inflation Reverses Course As Recession Floors Prices Renegotiations Make Bad Times Worse Finding Cost Data on the Internet What Drives ENR’s Cost Indexes How To

The British may not be as courteous as they are sometimes credited, but their contractors seem to be an increasingly considerate bunch. A scheme to turn jobsites into good neighbors is fast covering the country and is attracting interest from builders across the Atlantic. The Considerate Constructors Scheme "has been extremely successful and it pays for itself," says Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, who likes the program. CCS is voluntary and covers over 34,000 U.K. sites pledged to follow behavioral guidelines. Until this recession, "We grew at 30% a year for ten years", says Chief Executive

The 67 engineers and scientists called to the White House in December for a prestigious award were not old hands with lots of tenure working in their fields for decades. They were young professionals exploring not only the frontiers of science and engineering research but also real-world applications that break ground and cross traditional barriers. The government is betting at least $400,000 on each of these high-achieving but tenure-lacking GenX-ers over the next five years to transform their technology arenas and the image of engineering and science. Photo: Arizona State University Torrens sees benefits to urban rehabs, land use and

As President Obama’s multibillion-dollar stimulus package becomes law, one thing is clear: thousands of construction workers will be helping to transform the American economy and landscape. Still, employment worries continue to be a source of concern. + Image Graphic: Rommel Alama / ENR Source: PAS inc. *2003 – 2008 actual annual increases, 2009 forcasted increases (excluding 0% increases) Photo: Ne Liuna Media/PR Stimulus helps but could still leave many workers jobless. "The nearly one million construction workers who have lost their jobs across the country have a renewed chance of success with passage of the stimulus legislation," says Stephen E.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has denied a protest by Watsonville, Calif.-based Granite Construction Co. challenging a $44-million U.S. Navy contract award to Baldi Brothers Inc., Beaumont, Calif., for runway repairs at Travis Air Force Base, near Fairfield, Calif. Granite had protested the Naval Facilities Engineering Command’s rating of its small-business subcontracting plan as "unacceptable." But in a Jan. 14 decision, GAO said Granite’s "arguments amount to mere disagreement with the agency’s conclusions."

Reactions are mixed to the revamping of the model code development process announced by the International Code Council, which publishes the widely adopted International Building Code and 12 other "I" codes. The new process maintains ICC’s three-year code-development cycle but eliminates the code supplements, published 18 months after each code. "Instead of having two complete code development cycles every three years, we are moving to one," says Tom Frost, ICC’s senior vice president of technical services. ICC says the new system reduces the length of code hearings, increases participation and allows both the code development and final action hearings to

As Congress negotiates billions of dollars in potential federal funds for construction through the economic stimulus bill, President Barack Obama moved to bring project labor agreements back as an option on federally funded projects. The president issued an executive order Feb. 6 overturning a Bush administration ban on federal PLAs and opened the door to such pacts on projects of $25 million or more. Photo: Obama Campaign President Barack Obama Related Links: Full text of the Executive Order Three Executive Orders Good News for Labor Photo: New York State Huge infrastructure projects, such as the planned replacement of New York’s

At the first-ever ACE Mentor Program national conference, more than 125 executives and participants were optimistic that the industry recruitment group could still meet ambitious growth goals for both students and sponsors even in an increasingly uncertain economy. ACE seeks to attract high school students into architecture, engineering and construction careers through industry mentoring. ACE Vice Chairman Peter J. Davoren, also chairman and president of Turner Construction Co., said the group aims to have 100,000 student participants and 204 local industry affiliates around the U.S. by 2012. The group now has about 25,000 student participants. ACE may also add a

As construction jobs tumble in the credit crisis, thousands of U.K. workers downed tools recently to protest the use of foreign crews on a $290-million refinery project on England’s east coast. Unofficial supportive action spread from the Lindsey refinery in North Killingholme to unrelated powerplants and even the Sellafield nuclear fuel facility. Underlying the dispute at the oil refinery, owned by Total U.K. Ltd., are growing concerns that Europe’s free market is working against British workers’ interests. What triggered the unofficial Lindsey strike was December’s arrival of a Sicilian specialty firm on the refinery’s desulfurization project. Main contractor Jacobs Engineering