Senior Design Presentations

This year’s seniors are presenting the proposals for their Senior Design projects throughout the last week of classes.   I strongly urge you to view one or more of them – you’ll be presenting a year from now. 

• Almost all the presentations are a half hour long, starting on the half hour.  Here’s an unofficial schedule of the presentations.  Note that it’s best viewed in Week view.
• The presentations are in AEL-275 – the CAEE conference room.  Note that it’s a small room and will undoubtedly be crowded towards the end of the week.

Lancaster Square Presentations - A7

Our final class will be devoted to your presentations of the analysis of Lancaster Square.  We’ll handle it as follows.

• Each group will prepare a 4-minute slide presentation
• This is a reduction reduced from 5 minutes as defined in the assignment
• That presentation will be linked from your website
• The topic of that presentation will be as defined below
• Every group will make an oral presentation
• This is a change from what I said initially in class.  That’s because the presentation aspect is part of the grade.
• The time for presentations will be as follows
• 4 min presentation
• 2 min questions
• 2 min change-over
• Each person will evaluate each group using this presentation assessment form
• The group order and topics will be as follows

Topic	Group
Site	1 - Hope Lewis; Timothy Perdue; Ilana Ritvalsky; Catherine Stephens
Architecture	2 - Taylor Castonguay; Anthony Epifano; Kassandra Moyer; Janet Tran
Foundations	3 - Christopher Frederick; Alexandra Little; Colleen Mulligan; William Whitesell
High-Rise Structure	4 - Marko Durica; Christopher Hohn; Adrian Kuzniarowicz; Lekh Patel
Mid-Rise Structure	5 - Mohammad Alenezi; Karan Sagar Sinha; Matheus Tresso Custodio; Zilong Xiao
High-Rise HVAC	6 - Ami Amegan; Yu-Sen Liu; Chang Qin; Jiaao Wu
Mid-Rise HVAC	7 - William Kerr; Leonard Knittel; Rikki Moore; Omar Ramos Lopez
Electrical	9 - Yue Cao; Yilei Jiang; Melissa Mo; Yuyang Shi
Other Systems	10 - Hawra Nadheer A Almutailq; Jesse Chladil; Michael Holzworth; Michael Paccione

A5 Class System Evaluations–Monday 11/3/2014

To wrap up our look at the variety of HVAC systems each group will look at all the assigned systems using your submissions from the class database.

We’ll allow about 20 minutes for you to perform the review and then look at the results.

• If you finish early you can start looking at A6.

Each team’s task is to look at the “major systems” assigned – one of the three systems for most team’s websites.  Those systems with the team number are.

1    CAV
2    VAV
3    Window AC
4    Rooftop Package Unit
5    Radiant Floor Heating
6    Convective Heating
7    High Temperature Radiant Heating
8    Chilled Beam
9    Combination Home Air Heating and Cooling
10    Passive Solar - Trombe Wall
11    Geothermal Heat Pump
12    Residential Hot Water Radiators
13    Active Solar HVAC

You are to rate each team on two scales using this form:

1. Engineering Understanding – of the engineering aspects of the system
2. Site Organization – for viewer understanding

A4 Grading Comments

Good work again by the class on this assignment. Most of you were very thorough and put together impressive websites. Some of the common issues we noticed were:

-Many groups did not use all of their criteria in choosing their system. Many of you laid out huge lists of criteria, and then relied on 2-3 main criteria when you actually chose a system. 

-Many of you missed including something that was listed on the rubric, such as common numerical data for each structural system. Remember to go through the rubric before finalizing your website to make sure that you hit each point.

-Be sure to be explicit in why the system you chose meets your criteria better than any other system. If there are three viable systems, you should provide specific reasons for why the system you chose meets your needs better than the other two systems. 

Keep up the good work for assignment 5!

Best,

The Graders

Tom and Steve

Monday 10/27 Plan–Structural Selection Process

We will review your submissions for the Structural Selection Process using the sub-group method we used for A2.

Preparation – A Single Slide Handout

• Each team prepare a single “slide” (something easy to project and to print) on their selection process
• Bring enough copies to distribute to the other teams in your group
• It’s OK to just have it a link from you webpage submission

Groupings

• A Teams 1-3
• B Teams 4-6
• C Teams 7-9
• D Teams 10-13

Focus of Review

• Clearest presentation of the Selection Method

Process

• Each group will review the work of all their teams – 10-15 min
• Discuss and pick the most interesting presentation of the Selection Method – 5 min

Class Presentation

• Chosen team from each group will present their selection process to the class – 3 min/team
• Each of these groups will receive extra credit points to make up any assignment deficit  - 2 points/group

A3 Grading Comments

All of you did well with this assignment,we were quite impressed with the level of detail that some of the groups went into. Most of the groups have been following our advice and meeting the criteria on the rubric and clearly labeling everything. Here are some general comments we had on issues that seemed common to many groups:

-Many of you seemed to do a lot of copy pasting for the numeric parameters. This is fine in the sense that you need to look up the data and we're fine with you presenting it in the same way that you found it. However, it is important to go the next step and comment on the numbers. We would like to see groups make an effort to explain what the numbers they found mean, how they relate to others systems, etc.

-Many of the issues this week seemed to come from a lack of organization. When groups lost points it was generally because there was some lack of communication or some point on the rubric was overlooked.

Overall the websites submitted this week were excellent, keep up the good work!

Best,
The Graders,
Tom and Steve

A3 Class Plan

Looking Ahead

At the conclusion of A3 on 10/20 I’ll ask each group to be ready with a 2 minute “Sales Presentation” about their system. 

• Think about what I mean by a “Sales Presentation” – how does it differ from a technical presentation.
• We’ll asky you to fote for extra credit points (2) using the following criteria
• Most Effective
• Most Technically Convincing
• Most humorous

 

Class Meeting – Wednesday 10/8

Looking at the system definition

• What is the definition for a structural system?
• What are the components for some of your systems?
• How do they “perform a specific function” for your system?

Materials

• What materials are necessary for your system in addition to any “main” material?

Numbers

• What kinds of numbers are important for most structural systems?
• A key goal of having numbers is to allow comparisons when making decisions about the appropriate structural system during design.

 

Class Meeting 10/15

• What numbers have you found
• Discussion of “Sales Presentation”
• Work session with interruptions for issues of general interest

Monday 10/6/2014 Class Plan–A2 Review + Start A3

The goals for class on Monday are to learn about as many of the buildings you analyzed as possible, and also to get started on A3, Structural System Variety.

Reviewing A2 Submissions

In three groups (see below) of your A2 teams you will look at and discuss a subset of the submissions, selecting one A2 team building group to present their building to the class. 

• The selected group will then use their website to present their building to the entire class with five minutes of presentation time.
• That group will get 2 extra-credit points added to their score by the grader, making up for any deficiency in the grade – up to 100% total
• The groups are:
• Teams 1-4
• Teams 5-8
• Teams 9-12
• The criteria to consider for selecting the team to present include:
• Clear presentation of the building on the website
• Excellent presentation of the engineering & architectural challenges of the building
• Timing

Task	Time
Each team reviews the website of the other three teams in their group	8 min
Each group of four teams discusses the buildings	8 min
Select one Team to present to the class	4 min
Selected Teams have 5 min to prepare their presentation	5 min
Selected Teams present to class (5 min present + 5 min Questions)	30 min

 

A3 Structural Variety Start

When we have completed the A2 review you’ll shift into your new teams for A3.  We will:

• Review the criteria for the assignment – being clear about the expectations
• Discuss some of the issues with identifying structural systems this way
• All need a foundation as well – identifying typical foundations for your system is important
• Many are not complete above ground – e.g. bearing walls need horizontal members in addition.  Identifying those additional components is important.

You will have the balance of the time to start actual work on the project.

A1a Revit Assignment Comments

Once again, most of you did quite well with this assignment. Some of you created very impressive buildings, and we could tell that you put quite a bit of effort into this assignment.

Some general comments and things many people seemed to miss:

• Make sure you follow the rubric! All of you can see the rubric we will be using to grade your assignments. If you cover everything in the rubric you will get a great grade. A few of you this week forgot to upload your Revit model or word doc, and we had to take off 30 points for each of those. In future assignments try to make sure that everything on the rubric is on your website in some way.
• As per Professor Mitchell's policy, we will accept resubmissions of assignments within a week of the time the you receive the grade. We would definitely recommend this for those of you that forgot to upload the Revit model, as resubmitting the assignment with the model attached will greatly improve your grade. 
• Within the actual assignment, most people neglected to dimension the wall corresponding to the number of letters in their name. If you had a Revit model we could go into and dimension we still gave you credit, but in the future it would be very helpful to call out these types of things that are on the rubric that we will be looking for in our grading. 

Overall, the submission were very good, and the buildings created were quite impressive. Keep up the good work with future assignments!

Cheers,

The graders,

T&S

eQuest–How To Get Started

In class today I started to demonstrate eQuest, but it wasn’t available.  I’ve been informed that it is now available on all the machines.

If you wish to explore it I recommend the following:

• The built-in help files – they’re quite good
• the eQuest Manual prepared by former student Ellen Peng.  It’s in the Resources folder available in the menu on the left.
• This is a bit more detailed than you need – you accept defaults for many of the choices she discusses.
• The essence of what you do is:
1. Build a model of your building in the Schematic Design Wizard
2. Run a simulation of that building using a year’s weather for a location you choose in the USA (choose a US location with a similar climate for other countries)
3. Look at the graphs of energy usage
4. Go back to the Schematic Design Wizard and look at the charts that have been built showing the size of the components.

A2 Rules of Thumb and Things to Consider

Here are some things you might want to consider in your analysis of your building

 

Site - to Consider

• Zoning
• Setback
• Parking Requirements
• Height limitations
• Relationship to other buildings
• Shading issues
• More in other countries than US at the moment

 

Architecture

• SF/ Person - 200-400
• Circulation % of building 15%-50%
• Exiting requirements
• 2 separate exit paths (protected) with 20' of exit from room or suite
• Floor to Floor
• 9' in apartments/hotels
• 12-14+ in commercial

 

Structure

• Depth of Beam in 1/12 of Length
• Ie. Depth in inches = Length in Ft
• This is conservative - often 2/3 to 3/4 of this
• Studio Companion is great Resource
• Design Loads
• Live Loads
• Gravity
• 40#/SF residential
• 80-100#/SF commercial
• 250#/SF+ for storage and other special conditions
• Snow - up to 30#/SF
• Dead Loads
• Self-weight
• Lateral Loads
• Live
• Wind - 90mph ~ 28#/SF
• Seismic
• Blast

HVAC -

• Duct velocity - 800FPM to 3,000FPM
• Chiller Sizing - 200-400 SF/Ton
• Equest is great resource for first approximation

 

Electrical

• Typical feeds (in Philadelphia) 13.2KV 3-phase
• Typical in-Bldg voltages
• 480/277 - motors and lights
• 208/120 - Convenience, portable appliances, some lights
• Emergency System
• Range from corridor lights only (2fc -> battery packs)
• 100% backup
• Duplicate feeds from separate substations
• Emergency Generator
• Depends on purpose of building, client desires
• Increasingly will see tied to alternative energy &/or electrical storage (batteries mostly)

 

Other Systems

• What might they be?
• Fire Protection
• Stormwater
• Lighting
• Circulation
• Transportation
• Plumbing
• Security
• Telecom

Leadenhall Building

Please take an our of your time to watch this phenomenal documentary on the construction of the Leadenhall Building in London. The building is entirely modular and the video demonstrates the incredible amount of coordination needed to construct such a structure.

Enjoy!

A1A Revit–Wall Length

Question

Your continuous wall length is = 10 x the number of letters of your last name

Does this mean the longest length of just one wall is 10x the letter of the last name or the sum of all the walls is this length?

 

Response

The intent of this requirement is to define the length of the longest wall.  It is not the sum of walls.

A1 Comments

Most students did a great job on the first assignment! I saw some very impressive and skillfully done websites! Good job!

Here are some general comments for the class:

• Read the rubric! Make sure everything that's on it is included in your website. As long as you cover everything in the rubric in a satisfactory manner, you'll get an excellent great for the assignment. 
• This is not a graphic design course. With that being said, the presentation and quality of your website still do play a big role in your grade. Designing an extraordinary website that doesn't answer the deliverables of the assignment will not earn you lost points. Make sure your site is presentable, but also make sure all of the information required is there.
• Someone needs to read your site. Make clear headings and tabs that would direct the reader effectively. As a suggestion, organizing your site similarly to the rubric would probably be most effective for you to make sure you didn't forget anything, and for the reader to follow the different criteria in an orderly fashion.
• Overall, the responses were very thorough! Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

The graders,

T&S

Revit Assignment Questions

Question

It does not explicitly state that a website is needed for the Revit project, so do we need to create a website for this assignment?

 

Reply

No website required.  Just turn in the files defined in the assignment.

 

Question

I was just wondering if it would be okay if I turned in two plan sheets for my Revit assignment.  I decided to model a 2 story building and due to my overall dimensions, my plans at 1/8" scale are rather large to fit everything required on one page, even with sufficient cropping.  I have it organized right now so there are two sheets, each has a floor plan on it with the other white space containing the schedules, 3D views, and elevations views. 

Reply

Yes, you may turn in two sheets.

Note:  It’s possible to rescale any drawing on a sheet in Revit so you can actually make them fit.

A2 - Prepare for Monday 9/29

For Monday please have the following ready.

• Building Name
• Architect
• Major Engineers
• Building area
• Building Height
• Building location
• Building purpose(s)
• Year completed
• Number of floors
• Floor to floor height(s)
• Structural System Choice(s)
• HVAC System Choice(s)
• Major Architectural Design Challenges
• Major Structural Design Challenges
• Major HVAC Design Challenges
• Opinion - What makes your building special

I may well ask groups to make brief presentations about their buildings.

Class Interests and Skills Survey Results

As promised, here’s a summary of the results of the survey.

Your Concentrations

Design Experience

Construction Experience

Excel Expertise

Revit Expertise

A1 - Structure of Website

Question

After looking through some of the previous class database assignments I noticed that a lot of them include a separate tab detailing course goals and future skills. Is this included in the A1 assignment, or will we be adding that to our website later?

Response

While these aren’t required to be separate tab I’d suggest that past folks chose to emphasize them that way for the following reasons:

• The importance of Course Goals - can be inferred by the grading rubric of “Course Understanding”.  It’s generally a useful question to ask: “why are we doing this?”  A good course should have a good answer to that questions
• Future Skills – is one of the grading criteria titles

AE Rules-of-Thumb and Calculation Tools

The following may be of assistance in ROUGH approximations.

AE Rules of Thumb – Google Sheet with rules of thumb for several systems

AE Calcs Spreadsheet – Basic Calculations for several systems.

• Note that it’s part of the AE-Resources website – Which may have other useful tools
• It’s in the Excel group of AE Tools

Remember that these are only to give you a rough estimate.  They should never be used for actual design.

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