Week 10 - Course Reflection

When first registering for this class, I honestly did not know what to fully expect or what I was getting myself into.  My best guess as to what this class was going to be about was going to be to design a structure of sorts in a relevant software being used today and then incorporating the different aspects of BIM into the design and life cycle of that structure.  I also thought this class might be about how all of the different software being used today interoperates with each other.  Either way, I knew BIM would be an important topic discussed in this class and I wanted to learn more about it since I know I will be using it extensively in my career.

To an extent, my preconceived ideas of this class were correct in some topics, but wrong on others.  But, not wrong in a bad way.  All of the guest speakers who appeared gave great examples and descriptions of how BIM is incorporated in everyday life how it is applied to a myriad of engineering applications across several disciplines.  Also, in terms of the guest speakers who spoke specifically about a type of software, I enjoyed learning what was different between them and how some software is better for some projects than others. 

In terms of the main ideas and themes of this class, learning how “intelligent buildings” earn that title and how they will continue to become more intelligent in the future interested me a lot.  It is always fun to watch videos online about the houses or businesses of the future, but this class was good at discussing just exactly how those future structures will happen.  The incorporation of sensors that monitor every activity imaginable and then store all of that data in databases capable of sorting it and producing more information was interesting to learn.  I never realized just how many data sets or how much storage and memory is needed in order to fully operate some of these more intelligent systems. 

This class did a great job of introducing all of the details that are associated with the many topics in this class, but I feel as though there could easily be a separate and in-depth class that could be held for each one.  Most notably, the database topic could easily be stretched into a multi-term class to really understand what they are capable of doing. 

Overall, I am glad I took this course and would recommend to others, especially if Professor Mitchell continues to update his lectures and slides as technology improves over the years.

Comments on other posts:

Signe:  I am glad you enjoyed this class and I am curious if there are classes like this back home for you in Denmark that would explore these types of topics, or if their idea of an intelligent building would have a completely different definition. 

Stephen:  I agree with you that the major assignments were helpful learning exercises.  It seems as though getting hands-on with some of the software gives a little better perspective of just how much effort goes into what seems like simple tasks.

Course Reflection

This course covered a lot of different topics, all of which I found to be very informative. The course had many different aspects and was all around a good experience. From the professor to the blog posts everything that happened in this class was useful in one aspect or another. There were a variety of assignments that covered a wide variety of topics all of which made me think about the future of the industry and the future for myself.

I would first like to reflect on my professor. Professor Mitchell is a great teacher and really cares about his students. He includes modern technologies such as blog posts and a variety of computer software. He really gets you involved, and is truly passionate about what he does and I feel like it should be publicly recognized how hard he works at making this class better with every year.  The guest speakers that Mitchell brought in were another privilege about this class that us as students would never have had the chance to experience if not for this class.

The topics in this class were a wide variety that covered BIM, databases, robotics, sensors, networks, and 3D printing. All of those topics were very interesting and really showed the potential of the industry to come. It really made me excited for the future and where my career is going to take me. The most interesting topic we covered, in my opinion, was the 3D printing. To me it is an insane concept that I want to dig my hands into, which is probably why I chose it as my final project. My least favorite topic was probably databases. I did not enjoy the assignment at all and I feel that it should be improved greatly or replaced with a different topic. My favorite assignment was probably the final project. This is probably due to the fact that I really enjoy the subject I did my project on, but it also gave me a deeper understanding on where 3D printing came from and where its most probable to go.

Overall I enjoyed this class. I wish I could have spent more time on some of the topics and less on others, but that is neither here nor there, just mainly my likes and dislikes for the topics. I am glad I took this class and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about some cool, not so far in the future, futuristic topics.

Comments on other blog posts:

Ryan Donahue:
I definitely agree with what Mitchell said in the beginning of the term "you get out of it what you put into it.” Is there any topic you feel like you didn't put enough in and as a result you didn't get much back, that you wish you had? What was your favorite and least favorite topics? What would you change about the course if you could? Great post!

Week 5: BIM's future application; what else can BIM do?

Project Outline: 

Kyung Yoon, Abdulrhman Alkraidees 

Description of project

Saving energy is one of the critical issues in the world. To solve the issue, many material and mechanical engineers are working on the solution.  Meantime, these problems could be minimized by observing and analyze the building. In this project, we will discuss how BIM could be used efficiently to save energy of building. The BIM programs we will be focusing on will not only analyze and control thermal mechanisms like HVAC, but also physical mechanisms which could move overhang structure to create shades or clear out for the Sun lights throughout the day and season.

Why chosen?

BIM's ability is almost infinite. Since the program is still in the early stage of developing, the growth of its power can be exponential. Working on the same program is challenging to improve; however, we decided to approach the challenge in different way. The way it doesn't only require the thermally efficient, but also it has a great aesthetics of it. When we think of BIM as a tool of communication between buildings and human, we also come up with an idea of building that has a life; buildings that can not only communicate, but also moves. Many cases and studies are taken for entertainment purposes in this stage, but they do have small cases being used in residential buildings. This project will make us understand what the real meaning of intelligent would be and the future of buildings.

Relation to Intelligent building

If the construction goes bad, no good design would work as it was calculated. Even with best HVAC system, there will be errors and problems if the building itself has an unexpected problem. BIM is the most efficient way to analyze the building because they record and save data as-is based on installed sensors. This project would be all about BIM which possibly could be operated without any guidance of human observation. With this project, classmates and presenters will learn alot about intelligent building and understand better for the future.

Challenges

Although BIM users are increasing fast, still many people out there are not familiar with software. Since there aren’t many cases, it’s not so easy to find many case studies. Also the challenge we face in this project would be the transformable structure. Although transforming part could be as simple as small overhang shades, these structure designs and applications aren’t common these days. To get the best feed-backs  we should be contacting many different organizations.

1.    Introduction of BIM and Intelligent buildings

a.       Definition of Intelligent buildings

b.      Diversity of programs

2.       BIM system and HVAC

a.       Previous attempts and strategies of BIM system

b.      Newer methods and programs

c.       Case study

d.      Analysis

3.       Physical Mechanism

a.       BIM usages for advanced techniques

b.      Case studies

c.       Analysis

4.       Conclusion


Comments to other colleagues:

 Our project seems very similar to Waiyang's group in sense of utilizing the physical mechanisms to control the indoor environment by using BIM. However, using the BIM with smaller scale plus using different UV lights would be closer to common BIM approach with no technology. This project could work with Signe's project as well how she would like to discuss about the Sun light effecting the indoor environment. For her case, it would be opposite of energy saving because she would like to have the Sun light to come into the building. Ivan's project also have slight similarity to ours as well since we are mainly focusing on the indoor air quality and human comfort. The difference we will have would be the progress of BIM system to visualize how it's been changed over time. Many of student other than dave would have project about 3D printing. Dave specifically 3-D printed house which is very interesting subject. A house could be modified, renovated, and expanded for many different purposes. Based on my understanding 3-D printer requires one consistent material. It is very interesting how things would be put together to build a building with 3-D printer.