Week-8 Discussion–Comments

Despite the show of hands in class not finding the discussions that worthwhile I was impressed with the number of useful paper topic suggestions, both for approach and with specific suggestions for information and for focusing the papers.  You did a good job.

Rough Draft of Term Project

A number of you commented on being surprised at the grade for the rough draft stage of the paper.  I have several comments that may be appropriate:

• A rough draft generally means that the entire paper has been thought through, but the wording hasn’t been polished, and some pieces of evidence haven’t been submitted. 
• I’d argue that some preliminary conclusions are reasonable to expect at that stage although they could still be refined.
• Citations needn’t be complete, but at least some indication that there is a source (e.g. [xxxx]) would be desirable.
• The outline doesn’t need to have been slavishly followed.  Your ideas have probably developed as you write.  Nonetheless it is reasonable to expect that there’s an overall subject that the organization of the paper develops an idea, moving towards some form of conclusion.
• The issue of difficulties working with a specific piece of software arose.  Most of your comments appropriately pointed out that it’s more important to write up what worked and what didn’t work, and what was learned in the process, than to persevere to absolute completion.  What I care about is what you learn rather than the specific product.
• For those projecting into the future (robotics) it is reasonable to take the current state of the art and to project based on reasonable assumptions. 
• Reference to other disciplines (automotive, aeronautics etc) is entirely appropriate.
• Reference to science fiction is also OK, although one would like to analyze what technologies need to be developed to make the device possible.

Week-10 Presentations - Plan

In the last class each group/individual will have prepared a presentation on their term project kusing PowerPoint.  These presentations will be no more than eight minutes long  and will have been submitted to VistaBB in advance.

Each topic-group will bring five copies of their PowerPoint slides (4 or six per page is economical) to share with the rest of their class group.

Because there are nineteen groups we cannot hear all of them.  The process we’ll follow, therefore, is to initially split into five class groups.

Group	Teams
A	1, 6, 11, 16
B	2, 7, 12, 17
C	3, 8, 13, 18
D	4, 9, 14, 19
E	5, 10, 20

The role of these class groups is to:

• Review the slides and hear a brief description from the others in their group.
• Decide which of them will present to the whole class – for an extra-credit point.
• Be prepared to tell the class about other interesting things they learned in the discussion.

The balance of the class will be devoted to the the five presentations by the chosen individuals/groups.

• Eight minutes long
• Five minutes of discussion after the presentation

A2b–Final Database Comments

Overall you did a good job on the database assignment so there aren’t that many comments.

• Most of you had good databases modeled on the tutorial.  These worked as expected.
• Several of you had trouble with queries because somehow you created extra fields in the queries that either tried to calculate something or ask the user a question.  These can be helpful, but caused problems in this case.
• A few of you followed the model of the first part of the assignment and submitted separate word documents that described your experience and made comments.  This wasn’t an official requirement for the assignment, but made it easier for those who did so to meet the grading criteria to comment on the differences between sensors.
• The number of sensors that people found ranged from six to forty-one.
• Most of you had quite a few worthwhile characteristics, but most also found that manufacturers don’t give you everything you want.

Jim Mitchell

P3–Rough Draft Comments

I’ve graded all the rough drafts and left comments for each one.  Here are some comments that apply to many, but not all of the topics.

General Advice

• Structure your paper.
• An introduction stating your overall “thesis” is very helpful
• Think through the balance of introduction to the actual argument of the paper.  Several of you had introductions longer than the argument.
• Use headings and subheadings to make the flow clear.
• Be careful to use quotations and citations.  I’m checking papes in TurnItIn (no problems found so far)

For Those Doing BIM or Software Projects

• Don’t just do the project and include screen shots.
• Analyze what happened
• Draw conclusions
• Make recommendations for those who wish to do something similar.
• A “Protocol” that recommends specific steps in a sequence may be particularly helpful

For Those Writing General Papers

• Use your engineering training.  Several of you wrote papers that sounded like a popular magazine or a high school senior paper. 
• Don’t just rely on what others tell you.  Use what you’ve learned in the courses and think what is actually happening
• Think what are the limits of any tool – they all have them.
• Use your engineering economic analysis to test assertions such as “exorbitantly expensive”

Changes in making things

Here’s an interesting article in Wired magazine that presents a nice summary of how the world of manufacturing is changing thanks to the advent of new ways of producing 3D objects.

In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits

Does it apply immediately to buildings – probably not, but do the ideas have relevance to the parts of buildings and ultimately to buildings themselves?  I’d say yes.

Articles on Smart Buildings

Dr. Haas brought to my attention the following articles that relate both to the course generally and to project topics that some of you have undertaken.

Can green building save the planet?

Are Smart Buildings Green Buildings? And Vice Versa

Week-7 Discussion Comments

This was a successful discussion week.  Those who wrote about their own topics probably received some helpful feedback.  Those of you who only commented on others contributed many useful observations, suggestions and links.  Congratulations.

Access Tips

Here’s an article that arrived yesterday with information about using Access effectively:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380309,00.asp

From 2/16/2011 Class

Sensor File

The spreadsheet file of sensor characteristics is available at:
 http://goo.gl/jzbsE Updated 2/23/11 for class today

Board Image of Relationships of Intelligent Building

Here’s an image of the board as we finished at the end of today.  You probably had to be there to understand what it’s supposed to represent.
http://goo.gl/rymC8

A2a–Document Describing Process

Question

“The final 3 points can be made by making a document identifying work and confusion present. How do you want this document, since there are no real instructions on what you want? Do you want a write up on what we have done in this assignment as well as what parts we were confused of, and if you want both how long and in what format do you want it in? It is my understanding that a simple paragraph for each should be suffice, but I want to make sure.”

Answer

Yes, a separate document makes sense.  I’d expect it to be less than a page, enough to address the issues I identified.

A2 Submission for 2/16/2011

Question

“I was wondering what exactly you want submitted for the A2a - Database Preliminary homework. I created the database in access with three tables, three queries, three forms, and a report of information with two sensors showing that the two relationships worked. Do you just want the access file or did you want screen shots of everything in the grading criteria? “

Answer

Only the Access file.  I’ll look at the file itself to see the structure.

Jim Mitchell

Access Database Videos

In class on 2/9/2011 I’ll be demonstrating how to create a Microsoft Access database that meets the requirements of Assignment #2.  Last year I made videos of the process that are (mostly) appropriate this year. 

Because most of you will have Office-2010 your version of Access is newer than the one I used to make the videos.  Almost all the steps are the same, but a few of the menu items have changed slightly, and one wizard has changed as well.  Nonetheless it pretty much the same.

NOTE:  I was able to view these videos in IE, Opera and Chrome, but my copy of Firefox refused to shows them for unknown reasons.

Tables - Video 1 - 9:38

Build Relationships - Video - 2 - 5:44

• Be sure to close tables first
• Enforce referential integrity

Build Queries using Wizard - Video-3 - 11:01

Build Forms using Wizard - Video-4 - 11:12

• Select Query to Start
• Create forms
• 2/8/2011 Note that Property Sheet doesn't automatically appear
• Right click to select "form properties"
• Add some data as do so
• Note  that have ways to do pull-down list etc.
  

Build Report using Wizard - Video-5 - 7:48

• 2/8/2011 Report wizard different in 2010 Access
• No longer asked about appearance.  Must do that later

P2, Topic Outline–Comments

Despite some glitches with VistaBB (apologies) I received most of your outlines on time.  I provided specific feedback in my grading comments (the cumulative grades are up to date) so these are general comments.

• Many of you did not cite any reference sources.  Please remember that, unless you’re undertaking a project that is solely focusing on producing a product, you want to learn from those who’ve gone before you.  Since you want to learn from people that you’d respect that’s the reason for picking professional sources.  In this area you may not find directly relevant peer-reviewed articles, but you certainly want ones from reputable publications – those aimed at the professionals (trade publications) rather than the general public.  Google Scholar is always a good place to start, though it focuses mainly on academic sources.
• Narrow your topic – I suggested repeatedly to individuals and groups that they would need to narrow their topic.  It’s much more meaningful to do some narrower topic well rather than trying to cover too much ground and thus not really say anything you couldn’t have written before taking this course.
• If you undertake a project that attempts to produce a product (e.g. Revit Model) it’s OK to not complete it.  What’s important is that you document what you tried, what happened, your analysis of what went wrong, what you’d do differently next time.
• RTFM – Read the Freaking Manual is a wonderful acronym to remember.  Revit and Bentley and most software vendors have extensive documentation to help you learn how to do things.  Read about it before you dive in too deeply.  That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t dabble a bit first to get a sense of the tool, but for anything complex reading about it is going to be more efficient.

Week-5 Discussions–Comments

You all did a good job this week with only a few posts that didn’t show awareness of what others had written.  Thanks.  (only one person didn’t post at all)

Here are a couple of comments about the subject matter:

• What is an IFC?  Some of you seemed somewhat confused about what an IFC is, confusing it with a program that does something.
• It’s a standard that defines objects of interest to the building industry that is intended to be useful for data exchange between programs – or data repositories for that matter.
• Why are IFC’s imperfect as transfer mechanisms?
• Those who addressed the issue pointed out many difficulties.  I’d add only that:
• Different BIM vendors many conceive of the a building’s objects in a different way – e.g. is a doorknob an object on its own or an inherent part (property) of a door?
• Is a Data Repository “the answer”?
• I suggest that the fundamental problem of data exchange is still present, perhaps disguised by the fact that it’s being put in a separate database.

Matthew Waychoff Contact Info

I received the following email from Mr. Waychoff this morning.

Good morning Prof. Mitchell,
I enjoyed the opportunity to make your acquaintance and share with your students.
here are my powerpoint, video URL, and contact info. feel free to share this with your class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDYzpDx6ywI
please let me know if you have any constructive criticism as well.
Sincerely,
matthew
Matthew J. Waychoff
Computer Integrated Facilities Manager
Public Buildings Service, Region03 - 3P1PGS
U.S. General Services Administration
o2154465725
m2672503336
f2158738437
matthew.waychoff@gsa.gov

Learning Revit in Detail

What I’ve shown in class is only a tiny piece of the capabilities of Autodesk’s Revit series (Architecture, MEP, Structure).  If you want to learn the programs in depth I heartily recommend their excellent tutorials.  You’ll need to download multiple zip files totalling close to 1GB of material for each and then assemble it in a folder to make good use of it, but it’s worth it.

Here are the links for the 2011 versions

• Architecture Tutorials
• Structure Tutorials
• MEP Tutorials

One tip for the MEP tutorials (and structural I’m pretty certain): They make extensive use of a link to an architecture file.  I suggest copying that file from its folder into the MEP (and structural I believe) folder to make opening each tutorial file easier – you’ll avoid having to make the link each time.

Week-4 Discussions–Comments

• The level of discussion is markedly better this week.  Congratulations on taking this seriously.
• A number of you still aren’t relating what you have read to what has preceded your entry.  The “official” topics don’t have to be the same.  There are almost always connections.
• I was pleased to see that a number of you questioned whether BIM is a panacea.  My own view is that it’s worthwhile, but there are always losses.  One of the greatest, well identified this week, was the temptation to become over-detailed too soon in the design process.

Jim Mitchell

Term Project Topics–With Comments

Below is a link to the term topics you submitted with my comments for each.  As might be expected the majority are focusing on BIM, but there are some interesting topics in the other areas for the course as well.

A number of individuals did not turn in paper topics.  I’m not clear why, but that will be a problem for them.

My general advice to everyone is to be sure to be specific in what you examine if you’re writing what’s primarily a research paper rather than than documenting something you did with software.  You must use professional sources for references, not just popular magazine or blog articles.  They do not  have to be refereed journal articles, although they are preferable if available. 

Here’s the Link to the online sheet with the topics.