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 - Alkiviadis Tsitsios

AE 410, Intelligent buildings has been a very beneficial course to me. Because of technological advances, the building industry is changing. The purpose of the course was to help us understand how these technologies affect the future of our professional career. In terms of design, construction, operation, renovation, and demolition, AE 410 has helped teach the role of information technology in these aspects. Through the review and discussion of articles, many topics have been touched on. The class has reviewed how BIM affects all parties of a project, like owners, architects, engineers, and contractors. It allows you to communicate with all parties, and eases the access of shared information. Additionally, the class discussed BIM technology’s relation to other drafting programs, like AutoCAD. Not only did the class discuss BIM technology, it also discussed database software. In particular, its relation to BIM, and in design, was emphasized.

One of the goals of the course was to become proficient in Autodesk’s Revit. I believe that after this class, I am much more seasoned in the software. There were various assignments and tutorials that forced students to become accustomed to its uses. These tutorials and assignments allowed me to become more familiar with the software. Previously, I had glanced upon the software, and was slow at navigating it. Now I can make my way around, and I am aware of the locations and functions of many of the tools. Additionally, training was instilled for the Database software. Assignments regarding this were helpful. While the training in both softwares were helpful, I believe with slightly more tutorials, as well as some more tutorials on how to correlated BIM with Database software would have been helpful. Nevertheless, the knowledge that I have gained through the assignments and the class will be carried on with me through my career. My first real exposure to BIM and Database software has been through this class. As I progress in engineering, I can always come back to the information that I have gathered in this class for reference. The course has been helpful in understanding the conceptual reasoning behind the use of the software, as well as administering the software for technical use.

ROBERT BORRELLI
I agree that the course is not what I expected. I am glad that we discussed and trained in the softwares. Initially, I thought that it would be an informative course, littered with structural calculations and a buildings relation to technology. The class did emphasize a buildings relation to smart technology, but through demonstration, rather than lecture and speeches.

HANYAN CHEN
Before the course, I already understood that there existed “smart” technology. I did not understand that an entire building could actually be intelligent. Even through the final project, there have been many instances shown where a building could indeed be intelligent. Not only is there automation in manufacturing, and advancements in robotics, there are also advancements in building, and that is intelligent building.



MAALIK KAPTUE
I agree that this course is a lot different than most. Like you said, I am also used to courses which emphasize heavy calculations. It was refreshing to take a course where guest speakers were frequent, demonstrations were helpful, and the ability to be creative was emphasized

Blog Post 6: Course Reflection

I did not have much of an idea of what the class would be like, but I am happy with what I got out of it. I enjoyed the fact that there was a wide variety of topics, especially ones that I did not know much about. I knew about Revit and Building Information Modeling, but I had not taken classes that discussed sensors, robots, or AI much at all. It was very useful to broaden my understanding of what goes into intelligent building and where future technology is headed.

I have a lot of experience with AutoCAD, but barely any experience with Revit. The Revit assignment was very helpful in getting me familiar with the program and the step-by-step instructions, as well as the video walkthrough, was very helpful. I would have liked a second part to this assignment that walked us through using Dynamo as well. The sensor database assignment was useful as well, both in creating a database in Access from scratch and from trying to find data on different sensors.

The lectures and videos on 3D printing, robotics, and AI were all very interesting to me. I had already seen some of the technology that was shown because of my personal interest, however, I had not been keeping up with the new developments. Being able to automatically 3D print buildings and other structures will cause drastic changes in our current infrastructure.

I enjoyed the guest lectures, especially Kayleigh’s because I had never heard of visual programming before. I had been thinking about looking for jobs in BIM so it definitely got me curious when she said, “BIM is dead.” However, this sent me down a path from Building Information Modeling to Visual Design and Construction to visual programming and generative design. Generative design was the topic of my project paper and I learned a lot about it.

Overall, this class was very helpful, and I will use what I’ve learned throughout my career. The discussions and blog posts taught me to research new technology and think/talk about what changes will occur. It is important to learn about future technology and stay ahead of it or else you will be left behind. 


Comments:
To Sean Reifer
I am jealous that you did your project on Dynamo. It was something that I wished the Revit assignment went into. I can learn it on my own, but as you mentioned, it is more challenging to work through it on your own. A video walkthrough detailing exactly what you are trying to accomplish is very helpful in learning quickly.

To Nick Maloney
I agree that we learned about a lot of different topics, but did not have enough time to go in depth with each of them. It was definitely useful to get some information from the various topics, but there are some topics that I wish we went into in more depth. I believe the idea of the project was to allow us to pick what topic we wanted to learn more about during the course and do our own research which worked well.

Yicheng Li
I also learnd a lot of new things about 3D printing, sensors, and databases. I agree that the blogs helped us learn about something new and write about them almost every week as well as read other people's findings. My project focused on generative design which could become a problem when it comes to reducing or eliminating certain jobs. However, I believe some jobs will remain and their tasks will be altered and some new jobs will be created due to the changes within each industry.

Blog 4 - Project Outline

Senior Design - Dynamo

Abstract

-       Our team will be creating Revit Families needed for senior design, primarily electrical devices and fixtures. We will also be using dynamo to create sheets, schedules and manage data that is input into the model and families. The design process used to accomplish these tasks will be discussed in the paper.

Division of Labor

-       Samantha’s Tasks:

-       Place electrical devices

-       Circuit devices?

-       Schedules (creating and exporting)

-       Report - document the steps used to create code

-       Presentation

-       Jennifer’s Tasks:

-       Renumber Rooms by Level

-       Project Setup (ex. Sheets and templates)

-       Schedules

-       Report - document the steps used to create code

-       Presentation

Challenges and Limitations

-       Dynamo uses visual nodes to help connect inputs and outputs to make accessing and repeating tasks easier.

-       Challenges stem from never having used the program. We will have to learn how to build scripts within dynamo to eliminate typically repetitive and time consuming tasks in Revit.

Conclusions

-       Summary

-       Use Dynamo to complete tasks within Revit more efficiently. In the first few weeks we intent to become familiar with dynamo by watching tutorials and following along. After we will attempt to write our own code to complete the outlined tasks in our senior design revit model.

Resources

-       Lynda

-       Coworkers who use Dynamo

Schedule

-       W4 - Define tasks and watch tutorials

-       W5 - Watch tutorials, follow along and work with practice models provided

-       W6 - Begin to develop own script/ Rough Draft of Report

-       W7 - Draft due/ Work on script

-       W8 - Finish script/ Final Report

-       W9 - Final Report due/ Work on presentation

-       W10 - Presentation

For this project Jenny and I will work together using Dynamo to eliminate repetitive tasks in Revit. We will be using our Revit model for senior design to complete this project. Using visual programming we will create code to accomplish tasks such as creating sheets, schedules and placing devices throughout the building. We will also attempt to use Dynamo to circuit devices once they have been placed. We will first have to familiarize ourselves with Dynamo before attempting to write our own code. This will be accomplished using the knowledge of coworkers and workflow tutorials on Lynda. Dynamo uses input and output functions to control devices and parameters within the project. Our report will be a summary of the steps we took and tasks we performed/attempted. 

Responses:

Qiaodan, I enjoyed reading about your topic. I think the benefits of using BIM for residential design are often overlooked. As BIM becomes more popular and the programs become more affordable we will see it used more for residential.

Kyle, great topic but an outline would have helped understand your project a little better. I think choosing one material to focus on was a great choice. This will allow you to be more specific about  how 3-D printing will effect engineering and the construction industry.

Blog Post 4: Project Outline

How Visual Programming Improves Upon BIM and What’s Next

The topic of my paper is going to briefly introduce what visual programming is and how it got introduced to the construction industry. It is interesting to think about because construction and programming historically haven't been related at all. I then will discuss some ways that visual programming currently improves upon BIM. The first use is programmed 3D modeling which allows users to change certain inputs into a program and a model will automatically be generated. This saves a lot of time and makes changes to a design simple which avoids headaches. Another benefit of visual programming is being able to transfer information between different software automatically. Taking data from an Excel sheet and manually inputting it into a different program or vice versa has been a very time-consuming process usually given to interns or new employees. However, with visual programming, the information can be transferred automatically once the code has been written. I will then discuss what the future looks like and what may replace/improve upon visual programming. One thing that could definitely replace visual programming is Generative Design which is AI that can generate many versions of a structure based on your parameters automatically. Architects will need to stay ahead of this so that they do not get phased out by the technology. 3D printing buildings could add to Generative Design in that buildings could eventually be designed and built completely with AI technology by just giving it certain design requirement inputs. Finally, I will summarize the points that I made throughout the report and give my personal predictions for what the future of the construction industry may be like.

Comments:

1. Albert Hanan
I like that you are trying to incorporate Dynamo in different, new ways that will improve your model and make it easier to work with. I think you should definitely take some time to research all the different ways you can improve the model like automatically inserting windows at certain dimensions throughout the building. You have a lot of time to incorporate new things into your project and it will be interesting to see how much more you can do.

2. Hanyan Chen
Your topic is very important for the future of sustainable design. It will be interesting to read the paper that you come up with by the end of the term. Hopefully, adaptable housing and sustainable design will become more and more popular. I am looking forward to hearing about the impact that BIM has on design style, sustainability, construction, and the real estate industry as a whole. 


3. Christian Tait
This is something that I am also interested in and I'm looking forward to hearing about your project at the end of the term. The applications that you mentioned are interesting and AR is already being implemented in other areas today that you could discuss. You may even want to discuss the pros and cons of VR vs AR and how each can benefit BIM in their own way.

B4 - Project Outline

Topic: Development of BIM and Impact on Residences

Team member: Hanyan Chen, Yidi Li

Type of project: Paper

Outline

1. Introduction
1. What is BIM
2. How does BIM work
2. History of BIM
1. The Beginning
2. Development
3. Why is it important
1. Advantages, benefits in Construction and Design
2. Disadvantages
4. Why is it important to Residence
1. Current application of BIM in Residential Design & Construction
5. Impact of BIM to Residence
1. On Design Style
2. On sustainability (Adaptable Housing)
3. On Construction
4. On Real Estate Industry
6. Future of BIM
1. Brief description of future of BIM
2. Implementation of BIM
3. Challenges BIM might encounter
7. Conclusion

The topic of our project will be Development of BIM and Impact on Residences. Residence is a type of building that relies most on individual preferences. Therefore, the adaptivity of the house becomes the biggest challenge for designing and constructing a residence. “More creative and innovative perspective on designing residential buildings which will accommodate adaptability is needed to enhance building performance, through design concept for adaptable residential buildings (Raji and Gomez, 2012).” “A sustainable building is not a building that must last forever, but a building that can easily adapt to change (Graham, 2006)” BIM can help architects to provide multiple iterations for different preferences. It also let the owner and designer to create different phases of a project, which gives a future assumption of the project. In this case, it gives the owner ability to track over time how the project or assets changes and what changes can be made in the future based on his or her own preference.

In the paper, we will discuss the history or development of BIM and current applications in residential design and construction. We will also talk about the importance of BIM in the industry while addressing the advantages and disadvantages. Then, we will discuss the impact of BIM to residences in aspects of design style, sustainability or adaptability, construction and real estate industry. In the end, we will look into the future of BIM and challenges that BIM might encounter.

Comments: 
Yicheng Li, 
I really like the villa you chose to model. It is a great model to start with and the work you have done is pretty neat. I am really excited to see what the model will be at the end and what you have improved, both for the model and your skills of Revit.
Ren, 
I really like your topic with healthcare building design. It is an aspect that is important but being neglected. As our project doing BIM for residences, I am looking forward to see what is the difference between these two types of building.
Weiyi Tang, 

The topic of future residential house is really interesting, and it is great to have a model built up to show a better explanation. I am looking forward to see how it looks like and compare to what we researched as the development of residences by the influence of BIM.