Click on your smartphone’s app store and type in concrete, what do you find? Nothing but endless calculator apps to help determine the amount of premixed concrete needed for a particular project. Yet the concrete industry is much more complex and intricate for those who live it everyday and the team here at Giatec Scientific Inc. has launched an app that the industry has yet to utilise, the Concrete Hub. The application is entirely free of charge, so download it now and follow along as we introduce the first industry application to scavenge and compile all news in real time to be readily available at your fingertips.
Created for engineering professionals and students, the Concrete Hub app has a sleek design that resembles popular applications such as Apple News and Flipboard. The user interface is aesthetically pleasing and allows users to navigate the app easily. Designed to offer a beautiful variety of categorized collection for Civil Engineering professionals, academics, researchers, and students. As you open the app you will find six main categories labelled as Concrete Tools, Encyclopaedia, News, Tweets, Videos, and Knowledge Center. Within each category you will be able to discover useful tools and insightful information.
The PEW Research Center discovered that “62% of smartphone users get their news on their devices” (PEW Research Center, 2012). The adoption of gathering news from your smartphone will continue to grow. One of the biggest contributors to this is how social media platforms have evolved. “A clear majority of Twitter (63%) users, now say the platform serves as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family.” (Barthel, Shearer, Gottfried and Mitchell, 2015).
Concrete Hub incorporates Twitter allowing users to not only discover news but also connect them with others in the concrete community. Another social media platform the app has embedded is YouTube. The reason why YouTube is included in the app is because the platform allows users to learn about the concrete industry visually. Whether it is a traditional news format or modernized news formats, Concrete Hub has both in order to create an experience that no other concrete app has to offer.
Providing knowledge is the core concept for the Concrete Hub app and another way of providing knowledge is the apps ability to deliver real-time concrete news from a limitless amount of sources The Concrete Hub is the only application that provides the concrete community with real-time concrete news on both iOS and Android devices. Whether you are on your way to a construction site or you are traveling to the upcoming World of Concrete exhibition, users can access the most recent concrete news within the News category. As the nature of news continues to cater for mobile devices, the app allows users to learn about the most recent news in one place. It might not be evident but this is something that the future workforce will be engaging with in their daily lives. Access to real-time news is only one of the many elements that the Concrete Hub app has to offer.
Click on the Concrete Tools and you will find an easy to use concrete calculator. The calculator enables users to determine the amount of concrete mix needed for a given job. Along side the concrete calculator you will find two other tools, Concrete Shrinkage Calculator and Concrete Mix Design. With the current 1.1.3 version of the app, users are unable to access the two tools. However, in the coming months we plan to update the software, providing users an improved toolbox. The tools are beneficial for completing on the job projects but the app also provides useful information for students and professionals.
Inside the Encyclopaedia category, users can inform themselves with definitions, standards, and guidelines related to the industry. As an example, click on the dictionary section and type in corrosion in the search bar. As a result the definition of corrosion will pop up, followed by a small snippet from Wikipedia and a few images of corrosion. In addition, users will find a list of ASTM standard specifications for cement and concrete testing in the Standard section. Furthermore the guidelines portion provides a facet of guidelines, rules and requirements. For example the first guideline listed is the ACI 318-14: Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary.
The reoccurring theme of providing knowledge can be seen throughout the application. The mission of providing knowledge reflects what we at Giatec Scientific are contributing to the concrete industry. The Concrete Hub app will continue to update and evolve allowing Civil Engineering Professionals, Academics, Researchers, and students to collaborate and learn for the years to come.