Joseph Chaudhari B7 Reflection

Joseph Chaudhari

Dr. Mitchell

AE 510 – Blog Post 7 (B7)

14 March 2017

Reflection

I have learned many things in this Intelligent Buildings class. Let me start off with artificial intelligence. I never knew AI was nearly as big as it currently is until we spoke about in the first few weeks of this course. It is incredible to think of where AI will be heading over the next decade. We see bricklayer robots like SAM in some construction projects today; what will happen when robots are cheap enough for every contractor to afford? We may start seeing Geotechnical drills operating themselves and forklifts operatorless. Thoughts like these beg the question, what will these men and women do if AI takes over the manual labor and operator fields in construction. Will they be retrained to work with or maintain the AI and robots? Or will they fall by the wayside and have to risk starting a new career? The answer is probably a little bit of both will happen.

I never appreciated or knew much about databases and how much easier they make our lives and the lives or the engineers, businessfolk, and others that use them. It was nice to get some hands-on experience in working with the database creation program Microsoft Access. I would love to someday use a more powerful database creator software (and understand SQL!) to see the difference between the more powerful software and Access. I think databases could play a major role in keeping my future and current life organized as I plan on working in and operating (with the help of God) multiple companies that may or may not be related. Keeping all the information tied to these various future and current operations would be key in running them effectively in a manner in which time can be properly distributed to customer service, strong company growth and revenue accumulation, and most importantly community service and betterment.

This class will have a great effect on my future career as it helped mold my mind to be more aware and see how everything is connected and how this connectivity of everything can be taken to the next level by smarter technologies such as AI. Take buildings for example. How many accidents, failures, and mishaps could be prevented if a building could simply “tell” us, with the help of a great deal of sensors, some AI, and database interconnectivity, that it has a problem (like a malfunctioning HVAC system or a weld that is possibly failing since a great deal of vibration is being picked up by sensors near the weld’s location). This, AI and better sensor technology and interconnectivity with databases, would essentially help create an active and responsive structural health monitoring system. Something like this would save time, money, and most importantly lives.

The final research project was also a very meaningful assignment in that I truly learned a ton of information about the topic my group chose (robots and drone in surveying). I might have even come up with an idea for senior design thanks to the project you assigned Sir.

Ultimately, this was a great class and I really appreciated your teaching methods Dr. Mitchell. The blog posts and readings were essential to taking full advantage of the learning possibility that this class offered. Thank you for a great Winter term Sir.