Course Reflection - Ziyang Lin

The best words I would use to describe AE410 was remarkable and impactful if someone asks me in the future about the course. The learning experience was great over the ten weeks. The definition of intelligent building was explained very well. Also, the topics of intelligent building were various. We talked about Artificial Intelligence, BIM, 3D Printing, databases, sensors, and networks. Those topics define the future technology not only for the building and construction industry but also for manufacturing and other industries.

The experience of building a database individually was the one I liked the most. Because I had never designed a database, I started the draft database with no prior knowledge. I was confused at the beginning and handed in an organized database. After I got the comments from Professor. Mitchell, I realized what problems a database should solve and how does a database work. I started to research for guides about using Access that was the software I used. I watched through all the basic steps building a simple database. Then I research for information of sensors that I could use for my database. Basically, databases are libraries that organize all different books. We are like the librarians who build a system to easily store, organize and find the books. In the end, I did very well in the final database assignment. This is an introduction for database and I still have a lot to learn. However, the design experience was helpful and meaningful.

The lectures were also helpful, but 3 hours were too long for AE410. A lot of information was covered in every lecture. I usually was very concentrated for the first half of classes. The knowledge I gained in the second half was significantly decreased since it was a long class and evening class. If we have two lectures instead of one lecture every week, the learning efficiency would be higher.

The blog post was also a great tool for students to interact with each other. Reading through other people’s posts I learned a topic from different perspectives. However, I think bi-weekly blog posts would be better than weekly blog posts. 

Comments

Andy Dinh

I had same understanding about the course when I first signed up. I thought AE410 would be all about smart buildings such as how to design a smart building and what are the new technology used in smart buildings. After the first class, I realized that the course was more abroad and expansive. It almost talked about every new and leading-edge technology. I was so lucky to get to know all of them.

Ronald Park

Your reflection is very similar with mine. Did you write your post based on my blog post? The second, the third, and the last paragraphs were too similar with mine.

Joe Dressel

I like that you talked about the guest speakers. I forgot to write about them in my blog post. Their presentations were all great that I also learned different point of view from the industry side. They were from big companies and gave us some big suggestions for us seeking successful careers. There was even a BIM manager who let me know there are many job positions for knowing and studying BIM.

B7 - Connolly - Course Reflection

When signing up for Intelligent Buildings, my first thought was that I would learn more about BIM and sensors and how they interact. I thought we would talk about databases and how they can vastly improve how a business stores their data. As a Digital Building major I had hoped that this course was one in which I would learn a lot more about how to use each of them effectively in the real world. At that point in time, I had taken 2 database courses and hardly worked with actual database software, I had taken a few courses that touch on BIM but they were mostly the other courses in the AE department that just have one assignment in Revit. I had learned how to use BIM and setup databases mostly in my co-ops and not in classes.

After taking the course, I feel a bit let down by the lack of meaningful use of BIM and databases. I learned a lot about how they are used and the potential uses of them in the future. I learned a lot from the guest speakers who taught about the real world and how systems are used today. I also learned a good amount of the futurology of the construction industry and it could become much more efficient if basic AI or robotics were incorporated. However, I feel like the blog posts were somewhat tedious and the term project was essentially a longer blog post. I did like the two assignments that dealt with BIM and databases, if the term were split between learning more about those two subjects I feel that it would have been more effective. Professor Mitchell often wondered why the class seemed less than interested in the subject that he was teaching. An honest answer to that would probably be that it was due to a mix of the class being 3 hours at dinner time and also that a lot of the subjects were not directly relevant to what we will be working on in our careers. In my opinion, this course would be best taken either earlier in an AE major’s curriculum so that databases and BIM can be introduced from the start, or if the course curriculum focuses more on BIM and databases in the workplace.