Course Reflections–Themes and Comments

Overview

Most of you were quite pleased with AE-510, liked the variety of topics and our focus more into the future than the present.  A number said it made a noticeable difference to their understanding of the profession and their career.  I couldn’t be more pleased at that outcome.

What follows are my comments on some topics that recurred in your posts.

More BIM

Seven of the twenty seven of you commented that you’d like more BIM, with a number of those saying that less focus on databases would be desirable to achieve that change.  In future versions of this course that may happen once we have the Digital Building concentration in place – that concentration will have a whole course on databases required.  Even then, though, I’ll probably retain some discussion of databases because they are such an essential tool in contemporary engineering.

Databases

As noted above, a number of you would prefer to have less emphasis on databases, with the reason being that you don’t see them as being relevant to your professional life.  Others appreciated the introduction to databases.  To the doubters I’d argue that you are going to be interacting with them throughout your career, and that therefore a working understanding of them is worthwhile.

Even the Workload

Several of you would prefer to even the workload in the courses by not having several assignments due in a week while other weeks have little or no work due.

My logic for this current arrangement is that having a week with little due allows you to look ahead and prepare future work.  Some liked that.  I’ll continue to ponder it.

Staying Aware of Technology

A number of you commented that staying aware of technology, an aspect of life-long learning, was important and that you appreciated the course for that reason.  I certainly believe that’s the case and am happy that some of you agree.

A2b–Database–Grading Comments

Overall Comment

This assignment went quite well overall, with most of you understanding and appreciating the purpose.  Below I’ve addressed several issues that came up repeatedly

Planning

• Many of you realized the value of what Dr. Song emphasized, the importance of planning your database design in advance.  It’s just like a building – adding an elevator after the fact is MUCH harder than in the design stage.

Using Record ID Fields

• In my comments I referred a number of you to a post I thought I’d made (but now cannot find) about common problems with the first database assignment.  This had to do with the frustration that Access automatically assigns a number to a field that is identified as a “primary key”.  Using a primary key value for a particular record can thus be a problem if you delete it and think you’re recreating it – there’s a new primary key number which is NOT what you had before.  The trick is to not delete and recreate the same record OR do not use primary keys in “drop downs”, but instead use a descriptive field.

How To Enter Records Without Having to Look Up their key field.

• Access provides a method, one of number of “controls”, to produce a dropdown box in a form.  You can then see the value of a descriptive field in the dropdown menu, but Access actually puts the value of its primary key in the field.
• One or two of you experimented with this successfully.

Other Databases

• As I’d hoped, a number of you claimed to be quite interested in using Access further.  You should be aware that “serious” database people tend to sneer at Access (unjustly I’d say).  The fundamental problem is that large databases need to be used by many people simultaneously.  Access is not good at this.  If that’s what you need then you’re into the world of either a web-based database (probably PHP and SQL)  or a commercial product like those from Oracle.  These get more complex than Access quite quickly.
• Several saving graces are:
• the principles you’ve learned using Access still apply
• The SQL language that underlies Access is used throughout the relational database world.
• You can actually connect to large SQL databases using Access.

Term Project Comments

Overall Opinion

With some happy exceptions your work in these term projects did not represent the best of what I think the class is capable. In too many there were a variety of structural problems or a lack of focus on an “intelligent building” issue in any depth.  There was one unfortunate instance of plagiarism and several in which what was submitted bore only a tangential relationship to the topics of the course.  Below are my comments that address some of these issues.

Good

There were several papers that II read with great pleasure because the authors had either addressed the topic of which I was ignorant and related it clearly to the intelligent building concepts, or had taken some aspect of the intelligent building concepts and considered it in detail adding their own experience or projections.

Sad

Too many of you produced reports that had long introductions that outweighed the major substance up the topic. Others put together a number of different topics but in no greater depth than we had considered in class and without any significant additions.

Report Structure

One of the greatest disappointments was that many of you don't seem to fully grasp the ingredients of a good technical paper. Besides the obvious need to use appropriate language and to include citations for any assertions or quotations used there is a fundamental structure that is commonly expected. That structure is, to oversimplify for the sake of exposition:

• Introduction – Usually states the main idea of the paper to prepare the reader for what follows – 10% of length
• Main Body – Background, discussion of the elements of the main idea, description of how the main elements interact, consideration of difficulties with the main idea and possibly future work. – 80% of length
• Conclusion – Restatement of main idea and how it has been “proven” in the main body – 10% of length.

Intelligence and Green

A number of you addressed the topic of Intelligence vs. Green in one form or another.  I would argue that these two concepts are not inherently similar, although intelligence can often be used in service of developing a green building.  As I said to one group (edited):

You have written a paper which certainly meets the expectations of the assignment. What follows is an opinion that I hope you will consider as you move forward.

I would argue that by accepting the definitions of intelligence and green that you use in this paper you have automatically produced more of an overlap than is necessary. In particular there is no inherent reason why intelligence has to be used to produce environmentally friendly results. It can equally well be used to produce drama or luxury or general excess as opposed to environmentally friendly and indeed is used that way today. In that sense it's rather like the computer, a tool that can be used for multiple purposes ranging from enhancing a green lifestyle to killing people using autonomous drones.

Groups for Week-10 Presentations

Here are the groups for the presentations in Week-10. 

I suspect that some project titles will have changed so don’t be worried if that’s the case.  I attempted to put teams with related topics together, but had to balance that with roughly equal numbers.

Group	Projects
M	#1 - integration of Revit and a structural analysis program - Krall #10 - Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis - EPA SWMM Comparison - Alvarado Bastidas #7 - BIM Model of Elementary School of the Future - Houde #8 - Revit project - Wang, Li
N	#13 - Green vs. Intelligent Buildings - Mantua SD - Butler, Haddad, Ng #15 - Green Roofs - Bregande #16 - Green Roofs - Vazquez #2 - Intelligent and/or Green - Carpenter, Gulbenkian
O	#14 - Robotics in Construction - Hindes #3 - Robotics in Construction - Gonzalez, Cifligu, Gonzalez #5 - socio economic impact of the future use of robotics in construction - Meraz
P	#11 - sensor databases in a Building Management System - James #4 - sensors as a progressive way of building interaction with its surroundings  - Lancellotti, Martines, Pauliushchyk #6 - How do sensors availability can affect energy consumption in HVAC systems in buildings? - Ben-David, Morrison
Q	#12 - Equipment for energy efficiency of residences - Barry, Patel, Sawin #18 - Tedesco #9 - Philadelphia Row Home Efficiency Renovations (Green Vs. Intelligent) – Scanlon

Each team should bring paper copies of their presentation in sufficient quantity so that each person in your group can have a copy to follow along.  I suggest printing them out four slides to a page to save paper.

The plan in class is the following:

1. Each group will present to each other – using either a laptop you bring or the paper copies
2. Each group will choose one project to present to the entire class, with the other group members being prepared to explain why it was selected.
3. The selected Team will present to the entire class using their PowerPoint – 8 minutes max
4. The class will vote for extra credit for the “best” project in the following categories
   1. Most intriguing presentation
   2. Most technically competent
   3. Best use of “intelligent” technology

Final Database Assignment - Variety

Question:

The grading criteria for the final database assignment says we must address at least two building systems with comments on similarities and differences between them. My database is currently of all the green buildings in Philadelphia, with keys to the manufacturers and architects. I am a bit confused on what this requirement is asking for and how to incorporate it into my database, could you please clarify?

Response

Anyone in a similar situation should interpret this requirement as requiring variety in the entries in their database.  In this case that might mean both institutional, commercial, industrial building types.

FYI – the grading criteria stem from when I required sensor types.  I hadn’t thought through this issue.

Skip Week-8 Blog

Last Tuesday we were going to start a topic that was to become the subject for the Week-8 blogs.  Because the lecture ran long we didn’t have time to start that discussion.  For that reason:

No Blog due Week-8.  Use the time to advance your Term Project.

Note that there is no blog in week-9 either, BUT there IS a blog due in Week-10.

Sensors Blog–Grading Comments

This week was a particularly successful one.  You covered a wide range of sensors and addressed the physical principles behind most of them quite well. What follows are some specific comments:

• A few of you recognized explicitly that what is actually measured in most cases is NOT the variable of interest, instead it typically an effect of that variable that lends itself to measurement – typically electrical, but not always.
• One aspect that almost no one addressed was the response time of the various sensors.  Some of them (e.g. many humidity sensors) can take many seconds or even minutes to generate a reading, whereas other can have response times of milliseconds or even less.
• Accuracy and repeatability were important aspects that appeared in a few of your posts, as was the longevity.  Associated with longevity is the idea of sensor “drift” over time, requiring recalibration of instruments that must be precise.

Database Assignment–Document Requirement

Question:

“I was confused by the grading rubric.

For the first week it says to submit a document along with the database but on the assignment page it just says to turn in a document for week 8.

Do you want a document for both weeks or just week 8?”

 

Response:

Thanks for catching the error.  Only one document with the Week-8 assignment is required.

B4–Blog Posts on Term Projects

I was very impressed with the quality overall of this week’s blog posts.  In many cases I learned more about your term projects from the posts than I did from reading the outlines.

Intelligent Building Definition

A number of you commented on the confusing array of definitions of an “Intelligent Building” in the literature and industry more generally.  While I have no problem with your disputing what follows I suggest that you consider how I defined it during the first week of class.

¨Intelligence requires the use of adaptive computer technology.

¨“Intelligence” may exist in any system or phase of the building process.

¨We may thus talk of

• Intelligent Building Industry
• Intelligent Building Design
• Intelligent Building Construction (including renovation)
• Intelligent Building Operation
• We may also subdivide by systems – structure, HVAC etc.”

 

Sensors

A number of you are working with sensors in one manner or another. 

• I suggest, as I did in class, that it’s important to distinguish between the sensors and the software/hardware that makes use of the sensor data. 
• It is particularly useful to understand what the sensor is actually measuring (e.g. change in resistance for a strain gauge) to understand its properties and limitations.

 

Sources

Even when describing your term projects there are almost certainly outside sources that you have (or will) investigated that are relevant to your project.  It’s important to identify them.

A1 Grading–Revit–Comments

Here are my comments on the Revit assignment, A1.

• Overall people did a good job. 
• Some were cautious and only undertook the “novice” assignment even though they’ve worked on the same assignment before.  I’d say they didn’t get the full benefit of the effort.
• A number were quite short and sloppy in the writing - a

 

Difference between Revit and AutoCad

I commented to several students undertaking the “novice” version of the assignment:

I'm not sure that you fully understand the difference between Autocad. a drafting program that fundamentally just makes lines, and Revit, a program that truly models the building as an object that has properties that one can work with (e.g. engineering analysis, schedules, etc).

OR

It's not clear to me that you comprehend how fundamentally different the two programs are.  Revit creates a model that can stand in for the real building in simulations.  Autocad is just a creator of drawings, with no "knowledge" of the object it's creating.

Creating the Bookcase Family

• Many of you appropriately noted the differences in the tutorial instructions from today’s reality.  Authodesk should have done better.
• Understanding the importance of the reference planes (they’re normally used for defining dimension parameters) was a key learning issue for most of you.

Term Project Topics & Teams/Individuals

Below are the topics that you submitted for P1, with the team members listed at the end.  It’s an interesting list.  I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

• In most cases I made essentially the same observation about the project, that it was a good idea, but it would almost certainly be necessary to narrow the topic in order to have any real substance for the project
• In several cases students wanted to do projects that seemed much more focused on “green” than on “intelligent”.  I urged them to be very clear how it was “intelligent”.

 

#1 - integration of Revit and a structural analysis program - Krall

#2 - Intelligent and/or Green - Carpenter, Gulbenkian

#3 - Robotics in Construction - Gonzalez, Cifligu, Gonzalez

#4 – Sensors as a progressive way of building interaction with its surroundings  - Lancellotti, Martines, Pauliushchyk

#5 – Socio economic impact of the future use of robotics in construction - Meraz

#6 - How do sensors availability can affect energy consumption in HVAC systems in buildings? - Ben-David, Morrison

#7 - BIM Model of Elementary School of the Future - Houde

#8 - Revit project - Wang, Li

#9 - Philadelphia Row Home Efficiency Renovations (Green Vs. Intelligent) - Scanlon

#10 - Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis - EPA SWMM Comparison - Alvarado Bastidas

#11 – Sensor databases in a Building Management System - James

#12 - Equipment for energy efficiency of residences - Barry, Patel, Sawin

#13 - Green vs. Intelligent Buildings - Mantua SD - Butler, Haddad, Ng

#14 - Robotics in Construction - Hindes

#15 - Green Roofs - Bregande

#16 - Green Roofs - Vazquez

Week-3 Blog Grading Comments

Reading your posts this week was enjoyable and informative.  Almost all of you were thoughtful and appropriately incorporated (and learned from, I believe) the work of your classmates.

As might be expected there were several themes that stood out to this reader:

• The issue of interoperability is clearly one that is far from solved – and is important
• The interaction between all the stakeholders in the building process is increasing and coming earlier in the design process thanks to the tool.
• Question:  Are there stakeholders not yet regularly included?  Code Officials; Users; Maintenance People; Tenants; Fire Safety; Insurance?
• The use of BIM is now concentrated in the design and construction phase, but will probably have major benefits throughout the life of a building.
• Cost, capitalization, investment and other financial measures are extremely important.
• Legal issues haven’t yet become prominent, but may well in future.
• There was only one indirect comment on the age of this edition of BIM Handbook.  Six years is a long time in the BIM world.  Some of what was appropriate in 2007 is no longer true in 2013.

 

Grading Mechanics

• Three of you still did not submit to BbLearn and thus lost 5 points this time (I searched them out despite my threat not to do so).
• Don’t forget to cite your sources, including the assigned book.
• A few people were either rushed or careless and lost points on grammar and/or length.

Commenting on Other People’s Blog Posts

Question

“Do you want us to comment in our own about someone's else or as an actual comment on theirs?
I'm a little concern because yesterday when I did my blog at night only 3 people had submitted a post and non where of my group.
Please if you could clear this I would appreciate it.”

 

Response

What matters is that I have some evidence that you’ve looked at other people’s posts and thought about what they said.  Any of the following would do:

• Incorporate comments in your own blog – e.g. does someone else’s complement or contradict what you say.
• Add comments on their posts.  If you do this please say that you’ve done so in what you submit to BbLearn and include the URL of those posts.
• Come back to the blog nearer class time and write another post of your own commenting on what you’ve read of other’s work.  Be sure to add this URL to your BbLearn submission if you do so.

First Graded Blog Post–Observations

Mechanics and Grading Issues

• I’ve set up BbLearn to drop the lowest graded post in calculating the term GPA so if you had a problem on this first post you should be OK for the rest of the term.
• Not everyone turned in the URL to BbLearn – I found only 15 to grade.  I searched in the blog for the others this week and deducted 3 points from each.  In future I will not search.  BE SURE TO SUBMIT TO BbLearn.
• Source Quality – Many of you used general web sources.  I reserved “High Quality'” for those that in some way addressed the technical literature in at least one source.
• For those of you who lost points on commenting on other posts I’d note that it’s important to make your efforts visible to the grader (me) when reading your post.  If you have used the “comment” capability of the blog please mention in you post the other posts (link them) where you have made comments so I can give you credit.  It’s also OK to look at the work of people in other groups – you may find some interesting cross-links even though their topic was different.
• Labels – Please be sure to include at least your group,name labels and week-due labels.  I didn’t deduct points this week, but will in future if they’re not included.

Content Comments

• Overall these were an interesting group of posts that I hope you enjoyed reading as I did.  I learned of several new developments that intrigued me and was pleased to see you all contemplating the many implications of this information technology.
• Sensors – As I attempted to say in class, it’s worth differentiating the sensor from the device it’s in.  As an example, I’d argue that the Nest thermostat is a “system” and that the sensors in it are what should be considered when addressing the topic “sensors”.  This logic is true generally.
• Hardware – A number of you took the attitude that the advances in hardware aren’t going to be very important, that they’re only background subjects.  I’d argue that hardware and software go hand-in-hand, with advances in hardware making possible software efforts that weren’t possible previously.
• Analysis – Most of those addressing this topic dealt with the results of analysis.  I’d argue that it’s also important to think about what analysis methods (e.g. Finite Element Analysis or neural network modeling) will be enhanced and perhaps changed in the future.

Blog Entries for Week-2 – How To Approach Them

As you’ll have discovered by looking at the description for Week-2, your topic is to look into the future and address what you expect to find, with each group assigned a different technical area.  I suggest that you keep at least the following in mind when performing your research and preparing your blog post.

• Define what you mean by “future” – I suggest 3-10 years, but will accept other periods if you are clear in your definition.
• Be explicit in what implications you think that future will have for the building industry.
• Be sure to include your sources so others can follow what you’ve found.
• Indicate your evaluation of the credibility of the source(s) and thus the prediction.
• BTW – I’m perhaps in a minority in finding Wikipedia often a good starting point for explorations of this sort.  The credibility of the articles there varies greatly, but often they’re quite plausible.