Quelly Wk 10-1: B7, Reflection

B7: Reflection

Reflect on course and its effect on your profession and your future

My experience in this class was mixed; and I say that acknowledging that I am taking this class concurrently with other classes that have lead me to my current head-space. I am not passionate about architectural engineering. What I am passionate can be summed up with a couple of observations,

Mark Odorizzi's Intro Post

Experience with Intelligent Buildings
I am a Junior pursuing a BSAE/MSCE with a structures concentration.

My experience with the topics in this course are mainly focused around Revit. I have worked in Revit during both of my co-ops and have seen it utilized to varying degrees of its capacity. I have mainly worked on Revit's structural side and used Revit to collaborate on a single file with my coworkers, as well as coordinate with other trades.

I do not have much experience with databases beyond Excel work. 


Expectations of the Course
In this course, I anticipate reading and exploring various technologies associated with building construction and functionality. After the introduction, I expect that we will read and discuss software and specific technologies that are being adopted for construction purposes, as well as software systems being integrated into building controls to increase energy efficiency.


Blurps from Evernotes
The articles that I read in Evernotes relate to new technology that I have recently acquired: a fitbit and a VR headset.

The first article correlated the personal use of a fitbit to the level of personalization that should be integrated to building monitoring systems. The bottom line was that increased efficiency can be achieved if occupants are made aware of building energy uses in the same way that people are increasingly wanting to be aware of their step count.

The last articles I read pertained to VR that is being developed to operate machinery. This is very interesting to me. The article showed a man using VR in Spain and operating a piece of heavy machinery that was in Switzerland. Having just recently used VR for the first time, I think this is super neat and seems like something that can be developed to be very useful. Whether it is necessary or not, I am not convinced.

Definition of Intelligent Buildings
I would define an intelligent building as one that includes technology for the use of construction, self-monitoring, or operation of the building.


Article Citations (not all articles from Evernote had authors listed):
"Five lessons the Building Industry Can learn From the Wearable Tracker Craze." (2015 July 09).
Kurzweil: Accelerating Intelligence.  "Teleoperating robots with virtual reality: getting inside a robot's head." (2017 Oct. 06). 
Cheng, Roger.  "Dig thise: I operated a giant excavator from 2,500km away." (2015 Mar. 5)

Christopher Thach-First Post

My name is Christopher Thach, a Senior Architectural Engineering student with a concentration in Digital Building. AE-410 is a major requirement for me, but I feel that this course is relevant to my career aspirations. I have experience working in MEP design, heavily working with BIM software such as Revit. My expectation to for class is to learn more further learn more about the different ways engineers approach design and build buildings and new technologies that help support them.

Using evernote, I looked at the tag, "Philadelphia" this lead me to a site where I was watching a video that shows a drone flying around Philadelphia, and showing the different sites of different locations. I think that drones are gonna be the future when it comes to construction because they show footage of the site without having to be there. This can be helpful when showing progress and can show members of the project who are away from the site what is happening real time. 

To me, "Intelligent Buildings" refers to buildings and design methods that utilize the newest technology to help make the building smarter. Smarter refers to the ability to collect data, analyze the data and generate information regarding things like energy consumption. Also intelligent buildings are structures that have changing functions, hopefully with the intention of make buildings smarter and more cost effective.

Kerry Milligan's Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Kerry Milligan, and I am a senior BS/MS student in Architectural Engineering. My BS concentration is in Digital Building, which is why I am taking this class. Additionally, my MS concentration is in Building Energy, which I think makes this class a great fit for my studies here at Drexel. After taking the database class required for DB students, I feel pretty comfortable with databases and database systems, but unfortunately do not have too much experience with building modeling software, such as Revit.

From this class, I do hope to grow some of my experience with Revit, but most importantly learn about the wide varieties of technologies that can be used in our field, and how they are relevant to what we will be doing in our careers. In particular, I hope to understand how technologies can help design and build smarter, more energy efficient buildings.

The Evernote article that I found most interesting was Intel Labs Using Multiple Sensors at the City Scale, which I found by using the "urban" tag. This article talks about how Intel is using sensors and technologies to expand beyond the boundaries of a building and bringing it to the scale of a city.

My initial definition for an Intelligent Building is one that is active, as opposed to passive, and does more than just "exist."

About This Blog

AE-410/510 is a course for Seniors and Graduate Students in Architectural Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA.  We consider the uses of Information Technology on the Design, Construction and Operation of buildings, hence the course title: Intelligent Buildings.

This blog is created by students in the course responding to assignments and class exercises.  Use the "Labels" on the right to see the work of individual students OR the topics on which they've written.

The syllabus for the course is available from the "Pages" link.