Week 10 - Course Reflection - Nay Ye Oo

AE 510: Course Reflection

I came into this course with no knowledge about what the term Intelligent Building means at all. And I expected to learn more about what makes a building intelligent and how technology is applied in the field of civil, architectural and environmental engineering. As a BSMS student, I talked to some seniors about to complete the program and they recommended me to take this course because there were some principles and projects that would help out in future classes. Now that I have taken this course, I do see the value in the projects assigned in this class and how useful it is - database project.

I always liked excel and would use it as much as possible in any type of project during my Drexel life as a student and being exposed to Microsoft Access was an eye opener. I might not have been able to complete achieve a full understanding of the program's capability but now I can pick it up whenever I have the time to explore its full functionality better and be able to apply it in my future career.

My favorite parts of this class would be the lecturing videos that feature any type of innovative technology or application of it in the construction industry and the guest lecturers that Professor Mitchell brings to class. I always categorized the CAEE engineering as the most archaic type of engineering, at least when comparing to similar engineering branches such as computer, electrical and mechanical. Personally, the videos shown in class are a bit stretched out in the sense that using AI in construction is plausible but not efficient enough in terms of cost. But give or take a couple decades and we might just be seeing an actual impact of technological advances in construction. The more palpable improvement we can see is in the design phase. Software such as AutoCAD, Revit, Naviswork, Rhino, Grasshopper and more have all definitely made our lives as civil and architectural engineers easier and more efficient.

So to conclude, I am glad I took this class as my grad elective as it is an eye-opener for me to remind me that the engineering path I chose still has a lot of more room for development. It is just a matter of time and resources.


Comments

Johnson
Good point on talking about the applicability of this class in our future profession. I definitely got exposed to naviswork and software that are 'next-level' to that of Revit. And since I am planning to pursue a career in design, I think it is very helpful to have taken this class. For your final project, 3D laser scanning sounds like an interesting piece of niche knowledge to pick up on so I am glad this course was also helpful to you too.

Odorizzi
It seems that we picked up interesting and beneficial nuggets of information from this class. Databases was completely new to me so it was great to have another tool to add to our belts of engineering knowledge. Unfortunately, I did not have as much prior Revit experience to expand on that front. So kudos to being able to take the extra mile with the Revit project and even making your Final project about it. Hopefully I get to watch you present on Thursday.

Tufano
It is nice to be able to meet with fellow BSMS students in our undergraduate classes because it gives us a chance to work with 'like-minded' people. Also majority of the class is based on class discussions, online discussions and group work where everyone gets a chance to collaborate and discuss. I think this sense of non-traditional way of teaching really shines out compared to the more traditional approach of lecturing and listening because I get to work with a group of people who have such different ideas and opinions that the learning experience is exciting and informative.