Blog 6 - Course Reflection

Being an Electrical engineer, it was interesting to have another view of the technologies being developed. Most of our exposure during electrical engineering courses has been related to production lines and product development. However, this course clearly showed me how the advancements in one industry can come to play an important role in other industries.

At the beginning of the course I learned a lot about BIM and how AI is being implemented I the development of buildings across the world. It is interesting concepts like 3D printed to be brought to a bigger scale in which strong structures are precisely created in incredible shapes and form. From the class, my favorite section was the applications of AI to properly choose the best design of a building based on the ambient characteristics. I normally see AI in more controlled spaces, but using the data from the environment to be process to determine the best model is impressive.

On the other hand, this course gave me a big number of tools and skills on BIM, with the little exposure I had from previous years. I tried the most to make my project required me to use BIM. It was interesting to share my knowledge in controls with my teammates while they constantly teach me how to properly create and present a project at Revit.

About my professional career, this course gave tools to properly understand other industries. As well as provide more awareness of current technologies and different applications. I grow personally since taking the course because now I constantly review news about technology advancements to be up to date to up and coming technologies that I am interested in.

To improve this course, I would like to see more advancements in other industries not related to construction. After taking the course, I have come to realize that any advancement can be adapted to any industry. I believe that if these are shown, most of the students will come with new ideas to implements in their projects. I have taken a lot of knowledge and advancements in construction that I will surely apply to my career as an electrical engineer.

B6 - Class Reflection

Prior to taking AE 410/510, I was aware of Revit and databases as a concept, but I did not have a good understanding of what those systems were capable of.  Dynamo and grasshopper were also great software to get exposed to, as they allowed me to see where design firms in the architectural engineering and construction (AEC) industry is moving towards.  These, along with emerging technologies like robots, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality, can expedite construction projects and ultimately save money.

How this class exposed me to the Revit software I believe will significantly help me in the future.  At my job as a consulting engineer in the AEC industry, I am involved on some of Philadelphia’s largest and most forward-thinking design teams.  BIM360, as mentioned in this class, is one of the databases that I have been using, and on the same project, Revit is also being used.  Using these two software together has been extremely helpful, where Revit is being used in the design process and communication between various trades for coordination.  Then, BIM360 is being used to track problems with a system once it is installed on site.  Similar methods to issue tracking and design can be created using different software, but this concept is extremely helpful for projects with an integrated project delivery (IPD) method.  Dynamo and grasshopper are also clearly helpful to the design process, although for the specific career path that I am working towards, I do not believe they will be applicable.

Databases I believe are more applicable to my future career.  Occasionally there will be a project with hundreds or thousands of different buildings where data for each one must be collected.  Alternatively, there may be a single building, but thousands of photos that can be categorized by location in the building or what type of work is being photographed.  Larger projects like the second one mentioned can take years, or decades to complete, and with photos being taken daily, this can add up very quickly.  Towards the end of said project, finding specific photos can be difficult, but utilizing databases and queries, it could be possible to find specific photos much faster, saving time, and making the overall process less arduous.

Comment 1 Kunlun Ren:

Kunlun, it is great that you were able to get the opportunity to learn Revit and Microsoft Access.  I was in a similar situation where I have been putting off learning Revit and other software for years now, even though I knew I could learn it and that it would be helpful.  This was because I was either always too busy, and I knew that it was not an immediate concern, meaning I could learn it later.  I liked that this course forced me to learn the software, although I also wish that Revit were taught earlier in the AE curriculum at Drexel to help with junior design and senior design.

Comment 2 Harvin Bhandal:

Harvin, good points bringing up the novice level assignments versus the experienced ones.  I loved how Professor Mitchell allowed us to decide every assignment what level we were at, and be graded fairly and accordingly to our skill level.  Students who have used Revit over their co-ops obviously were more experienced with the software, and could complete the experienced task, while students like me who are not as familiar with Revit could do the novice level assignment.  The same can be said about databases.  This also allowed everyone in the class to learn more about databases and Revit, since everyone was able to expand into new areas of the software that they were unfamiliar with before.

Comment 3 Richard Kimball:

Richard, that is really cool that you have been teaching yourself to code and learn databases on your own.  I have also been meaning to begin watching videos online to teach myself specifically how to learn the command prompt on a computer, as I believe mass file edits are a common task that I will be given.  Learning the syntax and commands involved with the command prompt will help me streamline these processes, and save significant amounts of time.  Like you, I also want to learn databases and coding, and this class has been a great jumpstart to me gaining that knowledge.

B6 - Course Reflection

Reflection on course AE 510.

From this course, I learned a lot about the most forefront technologies of the AEC industry. I learned the basic concepts and detailed information on BIM programs, AI applications, databases, sensors applications, etc. And learned the possibilities of these technologies in the future. With the help of Professor, I am able to predict a little bit of big direction of the future of the AEC industry.

As a novice of Revit, I learned how to use the basic function of Revit to build a simple house through the course practices. More important, it aroused my interest in learning BIM software again. As an architecture student before I came to Drexel, I always thought about learning Revit. But as it was not required by the studio and I did not have the wiser sight of the development of the architecture industry, I just delayed the learning again and again. But in this course, with the very detailed and interesting introduction of BIM as a whole system at the beginning of the course, I realized that I could not delay the learning anymore. And also, the instruction for Revit we used in this course is very clear and easy to follow. It removed the big pressure from learning new software by using plain explanation and simple project cases. Even though this course is just a start for me of learning Revit, it is an absolutely good start of learning new software.

I also enjoyed the database learning after the Revit section. Before, I thought Access is just similar to Excel and I have never used it. Through this course, I learned that the database is not only a form to store data but also a tool that can classify and analyze data. And thanks to the database project, I can use the basic function of Access now. I’m sure that with more practice and learning, databases including Access will help me a lot in data storage and analysis work in the future.

Besides learning new software, the biggest takeaway for me should be opening my eyes of the AEC industry and trigger my ambitions for the advanced technologies. I learned that the AEC industry is changing with technology development and all the practitioners need to keep up with the times to avoid being eliminated by their peers. With writing the blogs and reading other people’s blogs, I feel big peer pressure as most of our students are keeping up with the times and new technologies. At the same time, I also feel lucky that there are so many people whom I can learn from. In concluding, this course helps me a lot for my future learning and working.

Blog 6: Course Reflection

My understanding of this course was that it was a first step in future-proofing my career without spending too much time on overly speculative guesses. Through reading assignments and lectures I learned about the past and present of the AEC industry and the tools it uses. This established a base understanding for the course to build upon with realistic predictions of what the future might be. The projects in the class were key to solidifying my understanding of the material. I found that the main topics of the course that have stuck with me are databases, sensors, and automated design tools like Autodesk Dynamo.

Before taking this class, I was not fully aware of how the industry had undergone significant changes with the advent of computers and new software. I did not fully appreciate the differences between CAD programs like Autodesk Inventor and BIM programs like Autodesk Revit. Now that I understand how a BIM program works, I could better understand how up and coming programs like Autodesk Dynamo work. I can see myself using Dynamo in the future, which is partially why I chose to work with it for my class project. Working on the project taught me a lot about computer troubleshooting both within and outside of the Dynamo interface. I would like to have spent some time in class learning Dynamo since it was somewhat difficult to pick up on. Regardless, the class served as a valuable introduction to Dynamo.

I wasn’t as taken with databases, but I still see value in them as they are an essential part of many other topics in the class. As Dr. Mitchell told us, BIM is a database at heart, so understanding the structure of a database is essential to coding in programs like Dynamo. The database project helped me understand the structure of databases and good practices in creating them. Beyond BIM, I found the use of databases in conjunction with sensors to be an engaging topic. Databases are a key component to many of the other topics covered in this course and I believe that they will continue to become more important to the AEC industry.

Sensors and intelligent buildings were very interesting to me and I agree with Dr. Mitchell: they will gain traction in the AEC industry in the near future. I think I learned the most about the proper use of sensors in intelligent buildings from Travis Peyton’s lecture. The importance of proper building maintenance and how a well-designed building would be useless without it was a bit of a shock to me. His presentation had a lot of practical knowledge and was eye-opening. From what I learned in class, I believe that sensors will eventually be very important to proper maintenance of a building and could provide valuable data to which can be used to improve building design. I would have liked to learn more about programming controls that use this data to optimize building performance and diagnose building health, but I understand that would likely require a fair amount of prerequisite knowledge. Overall, I found that sensors were an engaging part of the course and what I learned about them will be useful to me.

Knowing how the industry you plan to be a part of might change in the future is essential to any professional. This course offered a good look into that future and gave me a chance to develop relevant skills.

Ren,

I agree that briefly using programs like Revit was a great part of this course. In my case, I have had a fair amount of experience with Revit, but I think it was useful to have a refresher on it to keep me from losing skills. This class is one of the few times we are exposed to a nearly ubiquitous software within our college education, so I am happy to see that you learned a lot about Revit from it. I was a bit less familiar with databases, particularly Access, so I learned a fair amount from that part of the course as well.

Alkiviadis Tsitsios,

You are right; a little more description on how BIM uses databases would have been helpful. I had learned about it mostly from what I read for one of the posts, but had trouble sorting through the huge amount of information presented to me. I see that as engineers who simply use the software, we might not have a chance to use that information, but I still would like to understand it nonetheless.

M Kaptue,

I agree; this course has done a great job of showing us firsthand how the AEC industry is changing. I’ve heard about some of what we covered in class before, but I did not realize that it was something that could potentially become common while we are still working. This class brought the nearness of the future in perspective for me. I am thankful that I was able to take a class like this because I now can see these changes and help to bring them about, making myself an asset to businesses.

Nick Maloney,

You bring up a great point that I had missed: that there is a limitation to every technology. I had looked at this class with optimism, but I was remiss to not understand that all these new technologies and the technology we use today is limited. Not to say that you are being pessimistic; I would argue that your view is realistic. I’m reminded of the poorly maintained buildings that Travis Peyton mentioned. These new technologies will have issues like the technology we have today. This brings me to what I’d like to add to your point: people will also have to be able to troubleshoot those problems with new technologies. I believe that is where what we learned in this class will be useful.