Course Reflection

Overall, I found this course to be a thought provoking one. Previous to the first class, I thought that the primary focus of the course would be learning how to utilize Building Information Modeling systems, in particular Revit. However, I soon realized  that there would be much more depth to the curriculum. I had absolutely no knowledge of databases and their relevance to engineering before entering this course. I believe that the best way to prepare for future changes in your field is remain up to date with the current methods being utilized so that any "revolutionary" technology doesn't take you by complete surprise. I think that engaging in thought provoking conversations regarding the future of architecture and engineering got all of us excited, and a little bit scared about what was to come in the field. On a personal level, I had an experience recently while at an interview where the CEO of the company was describing a revolutionary technology that he had been developing for the past fifteen years. Thanks to this course, I had a much deeper understanding of databases and the implementation of software that links into BIM. Even having the very basic understanding that we developed in this course greatly assisted me in being able to understand the concepts behind the process in developing this very complicated software. This was just one example of what I'm sure will be many to come in my future in Architectural Engineering.
While it is extremely important to have the fundamentals and foundations of engineering that will never change, it is vital to remain current with technological trends. What may seem like a fad, will become a regular and necessary technology in the engineering process. For this reason, it is important for courses like "Intelligent Buildings" to exist to keep our minds open to the changing technologies and techniques so that we're not blind sided in the future.

Humidity Sensors

Previous to writing this blog post, I could have assumed that humidity sensors calculated their values based upon other factors within the atmosphere such as temperature or pressure. When first searching the internet I found that the term "hygrometer" is the proper name for an object which measures humidity or moisture content. They do in fact utilize other factors such as temperature, pressure, and electrical changes in capacitance or resistance in the atmosphere to calculate the moisture content within a room.

I was actually astounded to find that there were so many types of hygrometers. The primary types being hair tension, metal-paper coil, chilled mirror dewpoint, capacitive, resistive, and thermal conductivity sensors. Each of these types uses a different factor in humidity production in order to determine the level of humidity in a space. For example, the hair tension sensor utilizes the shortening of human or animal hair with an increase in humidity to measure humidity (which explains bad hair days in high humidity!) The amount that the hair shortens directly translates to the amount of moisture in the air on the dial.

A major distinction in the types of sensor utilized is whether or not it is utilizing electrical datum. Chilled mirror dewpoint, capacitive, resistive, and thermal conductivity sensors all fall under this category. Thermal conductivity sensors, measure absolute humidity in the surrounding air rather than relative humidity. This is another distinction in the type that could be measured that had not crossed my mind.

In reading other students blog posts, I found Matthew's to be interesting because flow measurement of fluids is similar to the measurement of humidity in that there are several different factors that can be measured in order to obtain the same result.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrometer

Object Oriented Database

Previous to this assignment, my general understanding and use of databases related to my experience with BIM. The larger manufacturers of MEP equipment (TRANE, Price, etc) have "libraries" or databases of families that they provide on their websites. These databases have three primary advantages: they lessen the amount of time that the engineer will spend creating families specific to their projects, they make the engineer more likely to utilize projects created by the manufacturer of the family, and finally they add the specific parameters for the manufacturer's product to your project therefore giving a more accurate depiction in plan. Maria did a great job of explaining the general aspect of this process in her blog post, relating uses for both engineers and architects. Little did I know, that this type of database is an object oriented database, and I had been using this type of database daily for the past few years.

When I began searching for specific definitions of object oriented databases, I found that the basic definition was that they store objects rather than data. Object databases are typically utilized for CAD projects, commerce, and multimedia applications. The primary advantage of object oriented databases that stood out to me is the fact that they tend to be realistic models rather than relational databases which merely store data.

It is my belief that this topic is relevant not only in this course, but through our use of CAD technologies throughout our careers. At one point or another, we will have to utilize object oriented databases for design and planning, or relational databases for our calculations.

Sources:
http://www.comptechdoc.org/independent/database/basicdb/dataobject.html

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

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_database

Term Project Description

For my term project, I have chosen to create a fully functioning Revit model of a sustainable elementary school. This model will coincide with my senior design project, which is a submission to the ASCE Charles Pankow Foundation Annual Architectural Engineering Student Competition. Each year, the competition assigns a building with a slew of specifications. This year, the building must be an elementary school located in Reading, PA. The school must encompass several features including a green roof, a pool, community spaces, classrooms, offices, restrooms, a kitchen, a nurses office, a library, as well as an art classroom. My senior design team's interpretation of this project is to create a school that will be both energy efficient and sustainable, and a school that will adapt easily to the future demands of education.

Considering that I have previous experience with Revit, I thought that this would be a nice challenge in expanding my knowledge of the software. I believe that having a functioning model will also enhance my team's final design and presentation for the competition as well as for Drexel's senior design experience. My project differs from many other students in the sense that it is directly related to the capabilities of BIM technologies. However I feel that students such as Gabrielle, who are touching on the intelligent versus green projects will correlate to my project in a larger sense.

The specific challenges that I am hoping to address are:

-To create fully functioning "spaces" within the building which will give various data to a schedule which encompasses items such as: occupancy per room, area, volume, etc.

-To have several "model rooms" which are fit out completely with architectural and engineering components. Including finished architectural surfaces, furniture, mechanical systems, plumbing systems, and electrical systems.

-To add functioning mechanical components, which calculate items such as flow.

-To add landscaping features, as well as the green roofs that are required by the competition.

Hopefully the elements that I plan to add to the building information model will aid in helping me to gain a better understanding of Revit MEP and Revit Architecture software.


Sources:
http://content.asce.org/studentcompetition/guidelines.html

Comment Left On:
http://ae-510-ay12-13.blogspot.com/2013/02/term-project.html?showComment=1359931761252#c2306524679662754443

BIM in the Future

As Dr. Mitchell mentioned in class, BIM is one of the largest developments in building design in a very significant period of time. As architects and engineers, we're no longer limited to two-dimensional depictions of our design. We are able to better communicate our vision in mind with our fellow designers, not to mention the client at hand. With this being said, I believe that BIM has a very bright future in the design process.

With any new methodology or software, the development of standards is a pivotal and important step in creating a cohesive use of the new method. Over the next five years, I believe that there will be the need for a new role within the IT departments of most engineering and architecture firms, and that role will be a BIM manager. This person will be responsible for the management of all standards of categories, sub-categories, interdisciplinary views, and families. I have experienced first hand the difference in fluidity of the BIM design process going from a firm that had a BIM manager (Eric), to going to a firm that did not have someone fulfilling this role.

Another interesting point that Junwah mentioned within his post, was that technology is no longer limited to our experience at the office. We have personal computers and hand held devices that allow our work to be mobile, therefore expanding our scope of where we consider the typical office environment to be. Perhaps it is necessary for BIM technologies to follow suit in being operable on portable/ hand held devices.

Comment left on:
http://ae-510-ay12-13.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-future-of-bim.html?showComment=1359307154289#c8049631744279889132

Chapter 4 - BIM for Owners and Facility Managers

In the industry I have encountered a plethora of ways in which BIM improves the design of buildings that are being engineered. However, up until this point I had not put much thought into the ways in which BIM benefits the owners and facility managers.
In Chapter 4, a thorough discussion of the benefits to owners is discussed, but the particular areas that caught my eye were energy savings and ease of coordination among separate disciplines. Previous to BIM tools, architectural, structural, and MEP systems were rarely comprehensively coordinated in a three dimensional sense, until they went to construction. Now, utilizing a 3D model with all of the disciplines "turned on" you can see potential coordination areas, and facility managers as well as owners have the chance to give their input as to which solutions would work best for them. As Jeanine mentioned in her post, it is of the utmost importance that the owner is fully trained in the capabilities of the software, so as to not miss out on the opportunity to utilize it to its fullest extent.
In terms of energy savings, Revit has the ability to render full scale simulations of energy modeling through daylighting. This can be extremely beneficial when choosing the orientation of a building, in order to take advantage of daylighting.
Overall, the aspect of owner involvement with BIM is crucial in moving forward with this technology.

Comment left on: http://ae-510-ay12-13.blogspot.com/2013/01/bim-software-ispushing-to-become-more_21.html

Robotics

Robotics are without a doubt, going to be a part of the future of our world whether we choose to accept it, or not. The science of robotics has been a reality for quite some time, however the acceptance of robotics into our everyday culture is becoming an increasingly prevalent phenomena.

In an article by Kanina Foss, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, one of the the leaders in robotics today, discusses the role of robotics in our near future. He has created a new generation of robots that mimic human tendencies, to the point where it is difficult to tell whether it is human. An interesting point that he brings up is the idea that children can not utilize computers, however they have the ability to interact with other humans (and robots resembling humans). Leading us to the conclusion that these robots will be more inclusive than the computers that we so aptly rely upon. The inclusion of robotics by society will be a transition comparable to that of automobiles and computers.

In fact, MIT has an entire branch of their Computer Science department dedicated to the study of Artificial Intelligence, as Dan James also mentioned. They have a team of graduate students and scientists that are responsible for a humanoid robotics study on a robot named Coco. I believe that with the integration of the study of robotics into our universities, the idea of robots will become more widely accepted by our culture at large.

Sources:

http://phys.org/news/2012-11-future-full-robots.html

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

http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/coco/coco.html

Kayleigh Houde

Background
My name is Kayleigh Houde and I am a fifth year senior in the Architectural Engineering program. In 2009, I began as a Mechanical Engineering intern at KlingStubbins. During my time at Kling, I developed an excellent foundation with Revit MEP, working alongside their Revit coordinator. Since leaving my first co-op, I have spent two and half years (both on and off of co-op) at Ballinger AE and have been the lead Revit coordinator for several projects. Most recently, I completed the entirety of the Revit mechanical design on a project for Boeing. In addition to this, I have developed the majority of Ballinger's Revit mechanical equipment family and schedule libraries that are utilized in projects throughout the company. 

Expectations
Through this course, I am hoping to expand my knowledge of BIM technologies as well as databases. In previous courses that I have taken with  Dr. Mitchell, I have learned a great deal and I expect that this course will not be an exception.

Definition of Intelligent Building

In my opinion, intelligent building encompasses all technologies which allow our engineering calculations and vision to be enhanced. In my experience, creating a solid foundation of these technologies within architecture and engineering companies enhances the vision for the building at hand when presenting to the owner and avoids conflicts between disciplines that may have occured with two-dimensional technologies.

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