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.

B4: Term Project Description

My project is an investigation into the automation of basic HVAC design, using Dynamo and manually created mechanical Revit families. The basic principles of Dynamo and family design for mechanical system components will be researched and then applied to a sample project, and then once refined, applied to my AE 391 building project. The family creation will not focus on in-depth modeling of the system, but more so generalized blocking of components to demonstrate how quick self-created, “dummy”, families can be used in conjunction with Dynamo, to perform a quick and accurate analysis for early HVAC system design.

The design will be applied to a simple project for testing and to my AE391 project. The AE 391 project is a building design project for a new academic, commercial and retail space on Drexel’s campus in Lot F. For the project, each of the building's systems, except electrical, must be designed. I intend to use Dynamo to simplify and automate the early mechanical analysis for the building.

My initial project idea was to create a detailed and fully complete mechanical family with numerous components. However, I decided to alter my project premise because I found the likelihood of an engineer at a firm actually creating a complete family quite low. Most companies already have their own sets of standard families for consistent design across the entire company, and if for specific design cases, equipment manufacturers typically have downloadable Revit families of their equipment.

I chose this project to develop my own skills with both Revit families and Dynamo, in order to acquire a better understanding of their capabilities and applications in the AEC industry. Hopefully, by the end of the project, I will have enough of an understanding of Dynamo to be able to apply it to my next Co-op or full-time job post-graduation, whenever automation possibilities arise. I am hoping that after completing this project, I will be able to identify things that can be automated in the daily regimen for a designer in the AEC industry, whenever I come by them in my career.  I think my biggest difficulty with this project will be the Dynamo programming due to my lack of Dynamo experience and the learning curve that comes with any new software.

Comments:

1) Albert,

It seems we are both trying to combine this project with our AE 391 project! I am excited to see what Dynamo scripts you come up with and what you are able to automate. Your idea to automate the dimensioning of the walls is a good one, considering how much time that took for our architectural assignment. I think I will also look into Lynda tutorials for Dynamo. I am hoping that by completing this project, I will become better at identifying tasks which could be automated. Good luck!

2) Maalik,

Interesting research topic! I like how specific the topic is. It seems you will have a lot of information to dig into for curtain wall assemblies. I know nothing about how curtain walls are installed, so I appreciate that you are planning to detail the conventional installation for curtain walls, and then how robots will affect or change that assembly. The potential of robots in construction seems to affect every discipline. It will be interesting to see how robots affect something as specific as curtain wall assembly.

3) Christian,

Once the technology becomes more accessible, augmented reality seems like it could be really interesting and effective in conjunction with traditional floor plans. I was also surprised by Derek’s discussion of AR, and how his firm is currently using it in some building designs. He made it sound like their current use of AR was quite limited, but the use of it at all is quite remarkable. The idea that you could directly compare as-built conditions with the model in real time, exactly where the forms are to be projected in a 3D environment sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. I am very interested in learning more about the current state of AR for the AEC industry from your project.

B4 - Project Description

For the AE 510 term project, I will be working with a friend in the class, Nick Maloney, designing a building model. AE 391 (Junior Design) requires the development of a mixed-use building on Drexel’s campus to house the CAEE and COMAD departments. We will be using our project as a vehicle to extend our current knowledge of BIM software. This will include a comprehensive building model (above and beyond the very basic project requirements) as well as an exploration into the use of Dynamo visual programming to expedite and automate aspects of the design process.

For this project, a focal point we have kept in mind is to not just use the basic design requirements for AE 391, but to enhance the project to go above and beyond, utilizing techniques and technologies learned in AE 510 to augment the building design. To document our progress throughout the term we have been keeping a journal of our progress as per Professor Mitchell’s suggestion. This will help keep us on track to ensure that we are reaching our goals and document our struggles, breakthroughs, and insights throughout the lifetime of the project.

As of now, the architectural system of the building has been designed to completion, with only minor changes being made to its form and aesthetic. This process took several weeks of hard work and was completed in Formit, AutoCAD, and, primarily, Revit. Currently, we are working on the structural design of the building, utilizing RAM to frame the building. We have also begun delving into Dynamo, a technology introduced to us in AE 510. As of now, we have a functioning script that will automatically insert dimensions between gridlines dynamically and we are continuously looking for ways to incorporate Dynamo in both our design, as well as documentation processes to increase our efficiency. If anyone reading this has experience with using Dynamo for a building design project and has suggestions as to areas it can be implemented to increase efficiency, please let me or Nick know, as this is an area that I see the most room for potential difficulties due to our lack of experience with the program.

Comments on Other Projects:

Alec: I find your topic really interesting. While we did delve into robotics and their use in the construction management sector a bit, I feel as though we did not go very in depth into the subject, likely because they are still a ways away from being fully integrated into this industry. Coming from a Mechanical Engineering background, it will certainly be interesting to hear your take and insight into the field of robotics, ways they are being utilized today, and perhaps areas of growth within the next 5-10 years. Best of luck on this project.


Christian: Wow, augmented reality in the CAE industry--how exciting! While to me, it seems like something out of a science fiction movie, it really is the natural next step to the building design interface. As you mentioned AR could vastly improve how we see conflicts and potential areas of concern in design as well as improve communication between the various stakeholders of a building. Imagine the mistakes that commonly happen during construction that could be prevented before construction begins due to a more complete picture of the design being seen by the designer and construction management team. I think this is a really cool topic and I hope that there is enough information online about this topic, but if the speaker last week said this was already being researched and experimented with in the field, then I am sure that sources of information will not be a problem.


Ren: As someone who has no experience in the healthcare field, the idea of building design within the field, and how many critical interchanging parts there are within a single building never really crossed my mind until I read your project description. At my previous co-op, I was designing small row-homes of wood construction, only using AutoCAD because of how simple the designs were--Revit simply wasn’t required. Structures within healthcare seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum--they are so much more complex that Revit is actually critical to account for all details and aspects of a particular building. My only potential area of concern might be that this is too general--even within healthcare aren’t there a wide range of facility types and needs? Perhaps delving into the different types of buildings within the healthcare industry and their specific needs, could be a good idea. Just a thought. Really great stuff though, best of luck.