Reflection, B7 Santiago Uribe

Intelligent Buildings was a very interesting class, I really enjoyed having all those guest speakers come in and talk to us about what they did. That was by far the most valuable experience I got from the course. I like the blog posts idea because it allowed us to express our opinion and things and also look into what other people thought. Blog posts could’ve been taken advantage more if we were asked to maybe respond to the comments that people had about our posts or something to kind of keep the conversation going rather than letting it dye right after you post your blog.

The two main topics of the class were interesting, each for different reasons. I enjoyed the first portion of the class where we talked about Building Information Modelling. I believe that topic is going to  be very relevant for my career and I will use the knowledge I took from this course on the subject. On the other hand I was not a fan of the Database discussions. Don’t get me wrong I think it is interesting to see how the backbone of the software’s we use really work, but I did not find the database tasks relevant to my career path.

The research project was a good assignment. Even though I picked a topic that doesn’t have to do with my concentration, I enjoyed learning about it. I think it’s important to have a wide range of knowledge in different subjects and the topic I chose (building automation) caught my eye from one of the first assignments where we had to research something related to Intelligent Buildings.

B7 Final Blog Post - Reflection

I came in with no knowledge of BIM tools at all. I never realized that the Revit I have been using is part of the BIM family prior to my first class in AE 510.

When I take a look back at my first blog post of my expectation on this course, it says,

"My expectation is to get some proficiency in BIM and more chances of teamwork-driven projects. I will be more than happy to learn from classmates."

I now could be very certain to say that I have definitely achieved this initial goal. By walking through the term project, I have gained a lot of proficiency in using Revit. In this project, our team modeled the ICA Boston. The building is characterized with a grand stadium stairs with angled orientation, furthermore, there is an opening in this grand stairs. These two features are hard to model and yield to sophisticated techniques in the Revit. In order to finish these features, I have even paid for some tutorials in addition to videos in Youtube. As a result, not only did we manage to model the project, but we also learned this technique ultimately.

Aside from modeling architectural components, I had chance to touch based in structural modeling. I have gained experience in architectural modeling utilizing Revit in other courses but never did I start modeling structural. The real challenge is when you started to model structural components, you have to integrate with the architectural design in the consideration that dimension or spacing would have to meet the building code, and this is when I found errors in measurements. They are very obvious when you switch to 3D view that you can see the trusses stick out from the facade easily. We cannot place the columns or trusses in wherever we are in favor of.

In addition, by introducing the idea of database, I really opened up my mind to various categories that I may have been ignorant of, since I could have assumed that they are irrelevant to BIM. Also, articles on Evernote broaden my horizons significantly. They inspired me to think about the issue of AI and intrigued me to have an extensive research on AI and how revolutionary it will be.

Last but not least, I found the lectures brought by guest speakers very inspirational. I have taken in considerable amount of information every time I listen to it. It is enlightening to get their advices so that I know how I need to stretch myself to fit in this profession. In addition, these speakers are also representatives from their firms. It is a great chance to discover the qualities of employees they pursue.

Looking forward, I would love to apply what I learned in Revit to my coop or extend it to future career. This is not only because I want to gain proficiency, but also I think Revit or other BIM tool would be the future of architectural design. Also, I would explore more in AI and how to integrate it into intelligent building.

Personally speaking, I like this course and it is very inspirational for Architectural Engineering students.  I truly think this course is one of the most authentic architectural courses that I ever had.

Comments

Grigorious: I totally understand your gravitation towards design and how it somehow sheered to Civil design. I had this struggle between Civil and AE earlier, probably because I have been confused what AE really does and I did not find a true answer to this puzzle. After I took several AE design classes, I got this all figured out and determined it be my pursuing career.

Lenny: I came in with the same assumption that this will be somewhat talking about highly intelligent houses programmed by central computer. Nonetheless, it does turn out to be essentially like what I presumed. I love your presentation on Bullit Center and I can see it would be the trend for future building. I have always wanted to design a green building. Thank you for bringing in this presentation.

Drew: I agree that database would play a more important role in the future and it is very essential to get familiar with SQL, as one of the major language used in database. Also, I love how futuristic scope this course present to us, I also liked the presenter from guest speech and they really brought in some very interesting perspective on the AE field now.

B7 - Course Reflection

Topic: Course Reflection

Overall, I like this course.

First of all, from my point of view, this course is useful. In this term, I have learned a lot about intelligent building. For example, I have learned that the concept intelligent building includes only the intelligent building itself, but also the smart construction and sustainable aspects. Besides that, I acquired more knowledge about database after the class. In this case, I learned more about the usage of database, also I learned how to integrate database by using Microsoft Access. In addition to database, I learned more about using Revit. Although I had used Revit in my sophomore year, it has been a long time since that time. By finishing the Revit project, I reviewed all the skills and I’d learned in CAEE 201, so now I can use Revit more efficient. Since my senior design project is to build a second library for Drexel University, skillfully applying Revit can definitely help our group save time in generating the model.

Secondly, this course is interesting. During the class, we had a lot discussion regarding to different concepts. Also, we had several guest speakers introducing their professional fields which were highly relevant to intelligent building.  The guest that impressed me most was the gentleman from Bentley. He showed us many advanced technologies of modeling. I still remembered that they used drone-driven laser scanner to scan the region, then their software generated the 3-D model automatically. In my opinion, if this technology is wildly applied, engineers are able to save a lot of time in doing site surface investigation, so that design companies can save much money.

Finally, I enhanced my skill of doing research. In the last few weeks, we were assigned to finish a research paper. Our group chose the topic which analyzed the relationship between green buildings and intelligent buildings. In order to finish the project, I've done much research regarding to the topic. After finishing the paper, besides learning more about the intelligent buildings, I felt that I've become more skillful in finding relevant resource.

Future

This class is helpful for my future. I am a civil engineering major student. In the future, I will consider sustainability in my design. Also, I will apply methods of intelligent industry such as BIM  if possible, since it helps people save time and money. Also, I've learn some basic principles for Microsoft Access. If I am assigned to integrate data in the future, I will use Access for help. Finally, I will do more research about how to make an existing building intelligent. In my opinion, there could be a huge market, as long as we figure out a cheap and efficient way to do that.

Comment to Jiaao Wu

I agreed that Professor Mitchell has a very good plan for teaching this course. The topic for each week illustrates a specific aspect of intelligent buildings. After discussing all the topics, I have better understanding about intelligent buildings.

Comment to Jinhao Liang

I agreed that the tutorials were extremely helpful for finishing the projects. Without their help, we might have to spend much more time and our project might not be as good as they are now.

Comment to Kaili Yue

I agreed that we can make friends in this class. The discussion session is helpful for us to practice our skill of communication.

B8 - Group D Jiaao Wu

Reflect on course

The first reason I chose this course is the course name called “Intelligent Buildings”. Before taking this course, I have a question in my mind that what progress has been made in the industry of intelligent buildings. In my opinion, intelligent buildings will be the most popular trend in building industry. As what I have stated in our group’s project, although some people think that intelligent buildings may not be much sustainable in some categories. However, I believe any effort will be made to improve this.

Back to this course, I think Professor Mitchell has a very good plan to teach this course. BIM model and database would be the two major components of an intelligent building. Courses related to BIM software give me an opportunity to have a taste of different software, and to understand the advantages and disadvantages among those software. I think I will never forget the difference between AutoCAD 3D and Revit, since Professor Mitchell explained it very clearly. For the use of database, I have never worked on Access before this course. Two exercises related to this topic bring me into the database world. With the help of several tutorials prepared by Professor Mitchell, I understand the basic structure of the database and how different tables are linked each other with the function of key number.

Besides two major components included in this course, I also like the guest speeches and weekly blogs. To be honest, at the very beginning, I did not like the weekly blogs that much. I did not think it would help me for this course. After two or three weekly blogs, I changed my mind. I began to understand that posting weekly blog is a great chance for me to read a lot of articles outside of class. Combined with the in-class contents, it inspired me a lot of thinking about intelligent buildings. In addition, I also think guest speeches can provide us a chance to hear the opinions from the industry. For myself, my ultimate goal is going to industrial world after completing my M.S degree. The guest speeches gave me a general idea about the industry. Since I am very interested in Structural Engineering, I believe, more intelligent items would be adopted into this field.

I also have some suggestions for this course. The first one is the class time. Many of us think that the meeting time is a little bit late. I often lost my concentration in the second part of the lecture time. The second one is the final project. It is little bit difficult to fully express our points in a 1000-word research paper. I think it would be a better idea to provide some specific topics for student to choose.

Overall, I like this course and I will definitely recommend it to my colleagues.


Comment:

To Mark: I agree that BIM model in this class would be the most useful output for the future study. Having a good knowledge on BIM can have many benefits especially for Civil and Architecture Engineering.

To Jinhao: I agree that the tutorials provided by Professor Mitchell helped us a lot during the course. And Professor Mitchell did well in explaining the technique terminology to the whole class. I would also like to thank you for your effort during the final project.

To Ami: It is good to see that you already have a very clear plan for your career. I believe that stuff we have learned in this course would definitely help you to fulfill your career goal. Take the advantage of BIM software will help a lot for a project manager.

Course Reflection - Week 10 - Alex

In the beginning of this course, I was not sure in what to expect. I searched for many classes and the  "Intelligent Building" sounded like it could be interesting.

During the term I could be able to see many of new technologies that can be considerate the future of the Engineering and Construction. Also we were able to work with many tools that are currently used in the industry of engineering such as Revit for BIM and Acces for database. I think it was important to me because I would not be able to learn how to use those tools in another course so far, and its a very important skill for engineering students.

Also the lectures in class made my vision about Intelligent Buildings change, I had a completely different vision in what the intelligent building was. The lectures from the people who work in the field was very important too. I think the lecture from the guy from Bentley was very interesting in show new technologies in the industry.

In general I think this course is very good for all students of engineering who wants to be aware of what is happening in the engineering field, and what expect from the future of engineering. I enjoyed the course a lot, and I hope in the future have a possibility to focus more on the technologies that we studied such as BIM and Databse.

B8-Jinhao Liang-Course Reflection

As a structure engineering student, I am glad to attend this AE course that will broaden my existing skills in engineering. I have to admit that I am a novice in architecture and have no idea about the intelligent building. I didn’t know what we will learn in this course at the beginning, probably about designing models in Revit or AutoCAD. However, there were numerous topics discussed in following classes and they are tightly related to intelligent building, such as sensors, robots and future techniques. In this class, Professor Mitchell divided us into 5 groups to discuss BIM, Network, and database, the relationship between Revit and AutoCAD, and so forth, and required us to post an outcome on the blog. This deepen our feeling towards intelligent buildings and promoted us to have different perspectives to look at these techniques.

I understand that lots of topics referred to the database, sensors and green buildings, which are tightly each other. They are shared in the Evernote where we could read these materials to gain a wide knowledge that I didn’t realize before. Two projects, the database assignment and the BIM model assignment, currently are very helpful for me to apply in engineering design, especially for my senior design project. For the model assignment designed in Revit, we don’t need to consider the structure and the force analysis. I completed a three-floor building and arranged different furniture models on each floor, such as table and chairs. For the database design assignment, I learned how to create tables, queries, forms, and report through Microsoft Access. Understanding the relationship between tables is critical for completing a more complicated database. I almost mastered how to use it and have completed a database combined with 4 furniture and 6 sensors.

Professor Mitchell doesn’t try to confuse us in these technical levels because he offers detailed tutorials to us that was made by himself. His purpose was trying to have us learn something as much as possible. Therefore, there was a weekly assignment that would be assigned and we were required to post it on the blogger to share them to classmates. I have never done this before and it is pretty interesting to read others’ blogs and have comments on two or three students’ articles. It means we could, in the meantime, learn 2 to 3 topics in one assignment. There were three guest lectures were given during the 10 weeks. They presented a more professional presentation and shared their occupational experience that made us know how BIM works in construction companies and how intelligent systems like BAS applies in buildings. Finally, I have to say this class is worth to attend and it is helpful for our future career.

Comments:

Jonathan Plotkin: I agree that this course is not just  about the focus on buildings, but how people themselves interact with each other. It was also really interesting that we added the information about sensors into google sheets. We can share the data collected from the website and input the price, the dimension and functions. At least I enjoyed these process, we can learn from each other. The materials what professor Mitchell shared in the Evernote is also really helpful for us to understand the intelligent building.

Pangyan Zhang: I admit that I am confused about this class at the beginning. I think this is probably a writing class. However, we really learned a lot from this class, especially about the function of sensors and building information management. I also learned how to use Revit that could be applied in the senior design project. I think that the MS access will be the most useful skill in the future career because database will be the critical resources for these big companies.

Catherine Stephens: I agree that the BIM is a very significant knowledge we learned at the beginning. Thank you for your sharing about the information that  many companies are hiring Civil and Architectural Engineers with experience using BIM. Maybe I think I should turn back to reread the article about BIM again. I also agree that the guest lecture is important for me to how the intelligent building works in the reality and I also expect to be an intelligent building designer.

Course Reflection - Week 10 - Hope Lewis

When Professor Mitchell said that we would get as much out of this course as we put in he was very correct. I learned a lot about the parts of the course that interested me and I made a conscious effort to spend time working on those assignments, but the parts that did not interest me so much I did not try as hard to learn about the subject and only put in the bare minimum to complete the assignment. That being said most of the aspects of this course were very interesting. I especially liked the visiting speakers from the industry that showed how what we were learning in class would apply to our careers sometime in the future.

This course also showed me how quickly the industry is changing especially when it comes to BIM. Although BIM has its issues no one can deny that it is going to be a huge part of the industry in the future and it is worthwhile to have at least some experience with it before joining the workforce full time. In addition the exercise with Access is worthwhile to gain experience with a program that is not necessarily part of engineering curriculum but still very important to keep information straight when it comes to BIM design.

One of the more interesting things that I learned about during this class was 3D laser scanning. I wrote my final project on it and while I knew abstractly what it was before I did, I learned so much about it both from the speaker we had on it and from the research I did. As someone who is interesting in renovation and restoration of historical buildings this is a powerful tool I can use. The fact that an engineer can scan a building and have a 3D representation of it is a huge advantage to those who would like to restore it, since it is not always feasible to be near the building as it may be far away from the office or in a place that is not easy to get to. With the model it is possible to ‘be inside the building’ even from miles away.

Comments:

Ami Amegan: I’m considering getting a March too! Though I would likely go into design rather than construction.

Anthony Yau: I agree with what you said about the family assignment, it was difficult to figure out the tutorial but as I was doing it I was thinking, “wow, so this is how this works.”

Taylor Castonguay: I know what you mean about forgetting how to use Revit. There was a period of about nine months where I didn't touch Revit at all after a period of using it every day and it was hard to get back into it.