Lauren Kujawa
B7 – Course Reflection
When this first class started, I was unfamiliar with many of
the topics we were going to discuss.
Besides BIM, I considered every topic “new” to me. I even considered intelligent buildings to be
a new topic. However, the topics we
discussed are applicable in everyday life, especially in the civil,
architectural, and environmental engineering fields. BIM has become increasingly popular in recent
years, and although I personally do not use BIM at work, many companies
do. Similarly, databases are used at
almost every firm in some way. At work,
we use Bentley ProjectWise, which is a database that stores all of our project
files. My learned knowledge of database
design from INFO 210 and AE 410, are not applicable to my career, but I think
it is important to be familiar with the ways that databases function and
work. Likewise, I do not have a use in
my career for the gained sensor knowledge, however, I found our sensor
discussions to be very interesting. There
seems to be endless possibilities with sensors, and I found that to be
fascinating. You really can measure
anything with a tiny sensor; I also find it fascinating that these smart
sensors can adjust themselves to make equipment run more efficiently and to
better the comfort of building occupants.
As I previously mentioned, I was not familiar with many of
the aspects involved with intelligent buildings, but I am familiar with
sustainable/green buildings. Because of
this, I choose to work with Tyler on the final project, and we wrote about
merging green and intelligent building technologies to form a bright green
building. From writing the report, I heightened
my knowledge on intelligent building technologies, especially on the technology
that goes into monitoring energy consumption and indoor air quality. I also learned about the benefits of building
green, intelligent, or bright; these benefits are not always apparent,
especially in the beginning stages when upfront costs are high. However, as time progresses, the savings
outweigh the upfront costs. When this class
started, I did not know what to expect, but overall, I enjoyed this class and I
am glad I took it!
Response 1 - Brad DiGiovanni
I agree that in other classes we have often rushed over
topics and are expected to learn them on our own time. But, I agree that it seemed like everything
was covered thoroughly and that I was actually able to learn and process the
covered information. I also liked your
comments about Professor Mitchell’s experiences being very impactful. I agree that the experience he brought to the
class really helped me learn and apply the lessons to my career.
Response 2 – Allison Abad
I like that you mentioned that this class is a break from
our typical engineering classes. It is
really nice to have this discussion based class, and even though there is
lectures almost every day, the lectures were not as draining as some of our
other classes. I really liked the group
aspect of this class, as I found it interesting to hear everyone else’s
thoughts on the topics. I also agree
that the database portion was difficult, even though I had taken INFO 210.
Response 3 – Marino Da Costa
I also enjoyed the guest speaker aspect of this class. I did not think to add that to my post, but I
found it interesting to hear real world applications of the topics we
discussed. Like you, I have already
taken INFO 210, which obviously focused on SQL rather than Access. I would agree that even though I struggled with
the database project, it was informative and I also deepened my understanding
of databases with the project.
I echo your comment that many of the topics and discussions we had in class were new to me - and I also enjoyed thinking about technology and aspects of intelligent buildings that I had never considered before. I would challenge your statements that both databases and sensors are not applicable to your career. Without knowing your concentration, I feel like databases and sensors have become integrated into our regular usage that we don’t recognize all of them. Perhaps you will not need to know the inner workings of the sensors like Professor Mitchell pushed us to explore, or need to craft a database from scratch, but I would be very surprised if your professional career was entirely void of databases and sensors.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I’m unsure how often I will use the database knowledge we learned in this class, but all the topics we discussed were interesting and could become relevant to our jobs as time progresses. Andrew and I also wrote our paper on the differences between green and intelligent buildings. I also have learned about green buildings from other classes so seeing the intelligent building side was a positive change.
ReplyDeleteLauren,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed you personal input about the applications you use at work and how you were able to tie it into the things that were covered in class. Your thoughts about sensors was really good and you made some really insightful points.
Lauren. I appreciate your thoughts on Databases. I think this was my favorite project this class, and second favorite this term. My roommate is a computer scientist and she is always trying to have conversations with me about what she is doing at work (at least what is not classified that is - she works at Lockheed). I liked learning about how the data we create every day is stored and transferred around the "cloud" of our networks. thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete