Class Reflection

Prior to taking this course, I thought its content would have been more focused on the design of intelligent buildings, or the intelligent design of buildings. However, after the first class I realized it was much more than that. The class, to me, was very conceptual. While I can't say that I walked away from this class with a full understanding BIM, robotics, or databases, I can say that I have a very broad understanding of these topics. With that understanding came my ability to come up with ideas and understand how building design could be done more efficiently, and intelligently. All of the aspects of the course can be tied back to idea of designing a better building.

One misconception I discovered I had during this class was that intelligent and green buildings can go hand-in-hand, but aren't one in the same.  Professor Mitchell mentioned that Bill Gates's house is extremely intelligent, having televisions that follow people on the adjacent walls throughout the house. However, that does not make his house very "green".

Humidity Sensors

Of all the sensors used in a typical building, humidity sensors were what I knew the least about before writing this post.  I had a general idea of how the other types of sensors worked, but couldn't even really make assumptions as to how humidity sensors worked.  The first thing I learned with this post is that humidity sensors are called hygrometers.  I did figure that, like other sensors, hygrometers used a combination of temperature and pressure, or change in electrical properties for electronic sensors to determine the moisture in the atmosphere. 

When searching the internet I came across a list of typical types of hygrometers used in the industry; metal-paper coil, hair tension, chilled mirror dewpoint, capacitive humidity, resistive, and thermal conductivity. The metal-paper coil and the hair tension hygrometers seem to be the most "primitive" form of sensor, being that it uses physical properties of materials and calibration to display humidity level on a dial.  The metal-paper coil hygrometer works like a bimetallic thermometer, only instead of two different metals, a salt infused strip of paper is attached to a coil, causing the coil to change shape.  A hair tension hygrometer works by measuring the change in tension in a human or animal hair with the hair shortening as humidity increases.  Both of those types of hygrometers are calibrated to display relative humidity. 

The other types of humidity sensors use the change in a materials electrical properties to determine the relative humidity.  Most of the time a type of salt or electrical polymer is used in these hygrometers. 

Object Oriented Databases

As engineers in this modern era, databases are used in almost every aspect of our careers.  While working on co-op I learned to use databases that the firm created, that were provided by equipment manufacturing, and that had been used for BIM or Revit purposes.  The database most relevant to this course would have to be the one we used for Revit and AutoCAD.  As a structural engineer, most of the materials we work with are somewhat generic and do not have specific manufacturers providing models of their product.  For the most part, Revit has the steel shapes stored within the preloaded database. However, when it came to concrete design, we often had to create our own families within the database for different types o concrete beams and columns.  Eventually this database begins to cover almost every type of beam or column and therefore lessens the requirement for engineers to make new families for a given project. After reading Maria's and Kayleigh's post I was able to understand a little better what exactly databases are and what they are used for within the BIM category.  While I had an idea of what an object oriented database is, I wasn't actually clear until reading their posts. 

Object oriented databases are exactly what their name implies, they store objects rather than data points.  This is obviously geared towards design applications, whether they be in CAD, BIM, manufacturing, animation, or anything of the sort.  This allows for the designers to be more efficient with their design and modeling.  I know that if I had to redraw everything in Revit or even AutoCAD, my job would have taken twice as long, which would dramatically decrease my efficiency.  I only see the use of these databases increasing tremendously over the course of our careers.  With the theme of this course being intelligent buildings, I feel this topic fits perfectly.  As engineers and designers, we will definitely continue to utilize these databases to further the efficiency of our process and design more intelligent buildings. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_database

ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/courses/F04/215/215-OODB.ppt

http://www.25hoursaday.com/WhyArentYouUsingAnOODBMS.html

Term Project Description

For my term project I chose to explore the uses and potential uses of robotics in construction, particularly in the structural component manufacturing and assembling.  Professor Mitchell suggested I further narrow down my topic to make it a more manageable project for the term.  Taking this into consideration I think I am going to research how robotics can and will impact the precast concrete industry. More particularly, the manufacturing of prestressed elements in the plant.  I had done a co-op with a precast manufacturer my sophomore year and have first hand experience with how the plant is run.  I am also currently taking a concrete design course, as well as a prestressed concrete design course.  Using all of the knowledge I have gained from these and the knowledge I will gain from these courses, I would be able to better understand in which ways the use of robotics would benefit this facet of the industry.  While I believe that robotics could and eventually will become the main components of a prestressed concrete plant, I believe that there is still a large human component necessary for the success of the plant.

While I had worked at the precast plant I had noticed that there was great deal of automation within the plant, but was in a very primitive form.  I am not sure if this was just because the plant I worked at was in great need of an update, or if this was common among precast plants.  Either way, there was much room for improvement.  I remember the concrete mixing plant being in the back of the building, where normal concrete trucks would receive the concrete and then continue to drive through the plant to their destination, all the while mixing as if they were delivering concrete to a site in the field miles away.  This seemed very inefficent and time consuming and potentially dangerous.  A truck meant for operating on an open road was opperating in an environmet with people walking aroud in close quarters.  These trucks have many blindspots and are not meant to be driven indoors like that.  There was also the issue of pulling the prestressing tendons to their design tension, a very dangerous taks.  If one of those strands had pulled or snapped it could have easily killed someone.  There is also the health hazard of working in an environment with all of the chemicals and dust associated with precast plants. 

I want to discuss how and if robotics will be implemented into the precast manufacturaing industry in the near future.  I feel this is an industry that can benefit from the use of robotics in a big way.

I found the project being done by Maria Gabriela Gonzalez and her partner to be very interesting and pretty similar to my project.  They talk about using robots in construction in the field; particularly for the more repetetive, automated tasks as well.  I think that once the technology becomes more advanced this will become much more feasible. 

Sources:  My first hand experience in a precast plant at Universal Concrete Products Corporation

 

BIM For Owners

While I had always known how BIM is revolutionizing the way engineers and architects design buildings, I had never realized the potential it had as a tool for owners and facility managers.  We all have some experience with BIM and understand its capacity for interdisciplinary integration, and how it can prevent problems and conflicts during construction.  What usually isn't thought of is how BIM can cut costs associated with owners' uncertainty.

Often an owner can have difficulty conveying their desires to designers, architects, and engineers.  The owners meet with a project manager, discuss what they want, the PM then relays the message to the appropriate disciplines.  The engineers design their systems around what the designers and architects request and then a progress report is given to the owner. It is always hoped for that the owner will approve of the design and work can continue. What happens often is that the owner will not like something about the space or layout of an architectural component of the design, and without fully understanding the implications of the requested change, they demand the designers change it. These changes can be very easy to make, but sometimes they can have a ripple effect through all of the other disciplines, jacking up the price of the change and delaying the progress of the project.  If the owner was able to look at a BIM, they would be able to better weigh the importance of said changes, and may opt out of some of them.

As Kayleigh discussed, the use of BIM would greatly benefit facility managers as well.  As we see all around us, large institutions are constantly updating and renovating their facilities. While this is great for the advancement of the institution, this creates nightmares for those who are trying to manage the whole thing. If there was a BIM available for every facility at Drexel, these renovations would run much smoother and would allow the university to more accurately appropriate funds for projects.  The use of BIM would also allow for a complete model of a given building exactly as it stands.  There would no longer be the need to keep several sets of plans with the worry that a given set may be outdated. Not only do I think BIM will save owners and facility managers time and money, I also believe it will increase the life of the building.

Robotics in Our Future

If the last 50 years has taught us anything about robotics, its that the rate of growth of use and capabilities of them is increasing every day.  When robots were first brought into the production industy, they simply aided humans in doing tasks they could not do themselves.  Today, there are fully autonimous robotic manufacturing plants that require little to no human intervention.  Some plants have systems in place where the robotic components are able to self-diagnose and even fix themselves or other robots.  While there are clearly many benefits to giving certain tasks to humans, there are many reasons to give the repetitive, precise jobs to robots.  Robots have a greater ability than humans to replicate tasks with greater precision as well.  Whether society accepts it or not, robots are becoming a staple in the manufacturing industry.

      Let's face it, simple repetetive jobs are boring and sometimes can be dangerous. In Robert Lamb's article "How have robots changed manufacturing?", he discusses the first time factories started using modern industrial robots in 1961.  The managers, supervisors, and owners all grew to love this new asset to their plant.  It never called in sick, never got tired, could work 24 hours a day and never have to be paid overtime, and was stronger and more precise than any human could be.  For these simple facts alone, robotics popularity grew rapidly in the manufacturing industry.

     In a Time Magazine article by Christopher Mathews, it is argued that robotics in manufacturing will actually help bring jobs back to America.  While they admit this seems counterintuitive, they refer to a Boston based company called Rethink Robots.  Here they have developed a relatively cheap robot that is able to simple, repetetive tasks efficiently and can learn tasks as well.  What this will do is allow manufacturers an American option to the cheap labor they pay for overseas.  With higher energy costs, and the growth of these developing countries manufacturers are looking to the U.S. to make products they plan on selling her anyways.  By utilizing this cheaper robot for repetetive, simple tasks, humans will be better utilized doing the more complicated tasks involved in the manufacturing.  While other students have claimed that robots will rob Americans of jobs, this robot, Baxter, is already helping American manufacturers gain an edge in the global market.  A plastics company in Connecticut has shown the robots veratility in doing tasks that would under-utilize a human.  To program the robot to do a new task, someone just has to show it how to do it, as if they were showing another human.  This just shows that robots may not be the death of manufacturing jobs in America. 






http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429248/this-robot-could-transform-manufacturing/

Lamb, Robert.  "How have robots changed manufacturing?"  10 November 2010.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/robots-changed-manufacturing.htm>  15 January 2013.

http://business.time.com/2012/09/27/can-robots-bring-back-manufacturing-jobs-to-the-u-s/

Brian Hindes

AE-510 Winter 2013

Introduction

                My name is Brian Hindes, and I am senior AE student with a concentration in structures.  My experience with BIM comes from previous class projects with Professor Mitchell and work I did during my second and third co-ops.  For my last two co-ops I worked at an AE firm called EwingCole.  This firm consisted of about 300 architects, engineer, designers, and planners.  Revit was beginning to be used to design more and more projects during my time there, and a few projects where I was heavily involved in.  I began doing small clean up tasks within Revit, and by the time I finished there I was modeling major building components.

               What I expect to gain from this class is a further understanding of the integration of the various disciplines during a building design, and how BIM can help mitigate future problems with the design that previously would have gone unnoticed.

                To me, "Intelligent Buildings" not only means buildings that have the latest technology regarding sensors and energy efficiency, but also intelligent design.  Meaning, during the design phase all of the disciplines work together instead of around each other to develop the best building possible. 

Architectural Engineering & BS/MS Students

Here is the list of Architectural Engineering students in the course.  This post is also used to create a "label" for each student so it's easy to label your posts later. – Updated 1/14/2013

Group	Last Name	First Name	Major
B	Barry	Nathan	Architectural Engineering
B	Ben-David	Tom	Architectural Engineering
B	Butler	Mitchell	Architectural Engineering
B	Cifligu	Elda	Architectural Engineering
B	Morrison	David	Architectural Engineering
B	Sawin	Michael	Architectural Engineering
B	Scanlon	John	Civil Engineering
C	Bregande	David	Architectural Engineering
C	Hindes	Brian	Architectural Engineering
C	Houde	Kayleigh	Architectural Engineering
C	James	Daniel	Architectural Engineering
C	Lancellotti	Jeanine	Architectural Engineering
C	Martines	Natasha	Architectural Engineering
D	Gonzalez	Maria	Architectural Engineering
D	Ng	Junwah	Architectural Engineering
D	Patel	Jalpesh	Architectural Engineering
D	Pauliushchyk	Margarita	Architectural Engineering
D	Tedesco	Matthew	Architectural Engineering