B6: Course Reflection

I have greatly enjoyed this course. It has been interesting to attend every class and learn something new about the AEC industry and how new technology will change it. The knowledge gained from this course has influenced my view of the AEC industry and has displayed to me its potential moving forward into the 10 to 20 years into the future.

In particular, I found the database assignment to be useful and relevant. I am glad that I have now created a basic database and have an understanding of the basic functionality of databases, which will be useful when communicating with individuals regarding databases in my career. It is also nice to have a simple understanding of how online services like Amazon and Spotify, organize and store their information. Prior to this class, I had not considered the role that databases have in the management of building information. From our discussions in class, building databases are a crucial part of intelligent building and allow for more effective monitoring of system statuses by cataloging sensor measurements and building information. Effective databases, sensors and automation system combinations improve system monitorability and allow building managers to prevent problems before in the system before the problems can occur.

The database assignment required the creation of a relatively simple database, but it still took a considerable amount of time, planning, and set up to execute properly. In class Professor Mitchell showed us the database for a simple Revit family; the number relationships required for that simple family was staggeringly high and probably contained about one hundred more relationships than our simple assignment. The complexity of large and applied databases to be extremely overwhelming and confusing, but it is interesting to know that hundreds of fields, tables, and interconnected relationships make up the framework for the data we make use of today in the digital age.

From BIM and Dynamo to databases and sensors, the topics discussed in this class have changed my view on what an intelligent building is. There are a lot of factors and considerations that need to be made and continued from early stages of design to construction and building management. Intelligent buildings are obviously favorable and possible, but cost, poor coordination, and low desire to change impede the progress of intelligent building construction.

For my term project, I developed a Dynamo script to convert rooms in a linked Revit file to spaces. While not a complex script, the project was still challenging. I am glad that I decided to complete a Dynamo project; I am excited to start co-op and begin looking for tasks assigned to me that could be automated.

I also greatly enjoyed the guest speakers for this class,  notably all of the Drexel AE alumni that came to speak to us. It was refreshing to have lectures from AE graduates to give us insight into the jobs possible for graduates from our program. I enjoyed learning about each presenter's current position in the industry and was surprised and excited to learn that a lot of the technologies we discussed in class are being used by firms in effective manners.