B7- Course Reflection - Vogler

AE 510 has increased my knowledge in Revit and in databases. I was able to learn what databases are and how to create and edit one.

Before the course, I had no knowledge on what a database was capable of, and now as I am leaving the course I can incorporate them in my professional future. At my current job, they do not have databases to store any information, and it would be extremely useful to introduce these as a way of organizing information we typically do not store anywhere, such as cost estimating.

I also learned how to make families in Revit, which has proven to be extremely useful. For senior design, we are creating a mussel hatchery, which involves having fish tanks in the laboratory. By knowing how to create a family, I was able to create and add the tanks that are specialized and wouldn’t be found in normal Revit databases. With this, our project increases in value, because this tank is what the entire room and building is based off of.

For my project, I wrote a paper on the value of BIM in existing buildings. From this, I learned a lot about different software that I didn’t know existed. One huge software I learned about is Vasari, which is capable of performing Building Energy analyses, and provide important information about what is using the most energy in the building. BIM has always been an interesting topic to me, and getting to learn more important information on it was extremely useful.

Being able to bring all of this knowledge to my professional life, now and after graduation, helps make me an important asset. Not many people in transportation engineering are exposed to this much digital building applications. I do not think it is seen as important for this type of design as it is for buildings, but it is still very fundamental to knowing what all software is capable of.