A7–Grader’s Comments

Grader-1

Great job on completing AE 390! Overall, the quality of the assignments was very good and I realize that you put a lot of hard work into them. The pictures that you incorporated from the tour really helped to explain what you were talking about. I hope that you learned a lot from this assignment. Have a great winter break!

Grader-2

Congratulations to all of the students from Professor DaSaro's section. All of you have come a long way from Assignment A1. Assignment A7 was exceptional in its organization and execution by all groups. You have all learned a lot about how to effectively communicate engineering work to others. Good luck in your future courses!

Jim Mitchell’s Comment – Congratulations to you all!

A7–Class Voting

Below are the results of the voting in class on the presentations at the final meeting.  As you’ll see, all the groups got the full five points, but looking at the details you’ll see that each group had areas in which they could improve.    I’d be happy to share the detailed votes for any group if requested.   Jim Mitchell

Only seven people wrote comments.  Here they are, not attached to the group about which the comment.

• missed utilities
• very well done
• A little dull. Obvious that they understand what they are presenting though which is a good thing. answered questions well.
• very good presentation
• Very good, detailed information.  Could have improved on the foundation explanation, and numerical presentation.
• The team worked well together and covered the system well.
• I liked the cost analysis for the hvac system
  

Elevator Capacity Information

Mr. Ad M Van Hees has supplied the following information about the elevators in response to our request.

Building Name	Bldg. #	Manufacturer	Type	Function	Year build	Year Renovated	Year in maintenance	Capacity
Academic	55	Dover	Gear	Passenger #2	1989		1989	3500
Academic	55	Sheppard Warner	Gear	Passenger #3	1989		1989	2500
Academic	55	Dover	Gear	Freight	1989		1989	4500
Academic	55	Otis	Gearless	Passenger #1	1989		1989	2000

Added by Mr. Taylor

To add to the information below. Drexel renovated the building in 1989 after purchasing a few years before. The three existing elevators were renovated and a fourth elevator added. All of the elevators were renovated by Dover. In a renovation some components of the original elevator are kept and some are replaced. The replacement components which usually include the car operator panels and door operators, and often the lifting machinery will usually be by other manufacturers than the original installing company.

A6–Grader’s Comments

Grader-1 Comments:

• Perhaps it was the extra time given for this assignment, but I felt that quality of these assignments was very good.  Most groups were quite comprehensive with their relevant systems and criteria.
• Ensure that the decision matrix is giving reasonable suggestions.  I'm not sure if this was due to Excel issues, but it is critical to test out the matrix with various combinations.
• Based on the teamwork evaluations, students seemed to have worked very well in their teams.
• Everyone seems have a good idea of what is required of the assignments now.  This will put you in a good position going into the final assignment.
  

Grader-2 Comments:

• These assignments reflect an improvement from Assignment 5, good job everyone. This section as well seems to be working well together overall according to the team evaluations. Be sure to plan ahead for Assignment 7, you are all well prepared to complete the assignment as long as you schedule enough time to complete it. Keep up the good work!

A7 - Academic Building Drawings

Those drawings that are available to Drexel are now in a folder on the front page of the VBB site.
* Autocad drawing - 20090918 - Academic Master in progress.dwg - shows multiple floors
* Bakery Renovation 6th Floor.zip - Drawings of the Bakery Renovation on the 6th floor - recent
* Academic Building Drawings from PDC Site.zip - All files from the Planning Design and Construction Building (PDC) site.  There's an index in Excel format in the zip file as well.

A6 - Question about Fuel Criteria

Question:

When we sat down yesterday to discuss out criteria we mentioned fuel as one of them. How would you apply this outside of the operational cost? I believe this should be applied under operational costs because to operate the system needs fuel whether its geothermal, water, electricity, or gas with the exception of wind scoops and passive solar. What is your opinion on keep this as a seperate criteria instead of combining it with operational costs?

 

Response:

I'd argue that in at least some circumstances the availability of a particular fuel may be different, although obviously cost is often closely linked.  It's your call whether or not to separate it.

A5 - Grader's Comments

Grader-1

• Overall, students did very well with the modified assignment criteria.  This allowed groups to explore their primary and secondary system a little bit more than in past years.  This helped to minimize overlapping among groups.
• Don't forget to address the concept of a system, as defined in week 1, within your assignment.  This was listed in the grading criteria, but several groups failed to make reference to this.
• Be sure to back up claims about the limitations of systems with some numerical evidence.  For example, what is a typical building footprint (square footage) or climate (temperature, RH, etc.) for this type of system?  This will make your claim sound more convincing and that it is indeed a limitation.
• Be sure to complete the extra credit section.  This is an easy way to make up for lost points.

Grader-2

• As we have progressed through this course, the assignments have become more open ended in regards to the deliverables. A good way to approach these assignments, I've found, is to practice them as if they were engineering communications you would make to somebody that is unfamiliar to the discipline. How would you present this information so that it is clear to understand? What information do you think is the most relevant and important to show? 
• In regards to group work, remember that your teams rely on you to be timely and prompt with your response so that the project can move forward. Communication is very important in engineering whether it be technical writing or correspondence. Please remember that these final two assignments are weighted more than the past assignments, especially the last one. Be sure to give yourself and your team ample time to complete A7. Good luck everyone!

One group had a teamwork problem.  Generally, however, most groups are functioning well.  Congratulations.

A5 Requirements Clarification

For Assignment #5 we're modifying the requirements as follows from what the assignment on VistaBB says.  The posted requirements are:

“You should address at least three primary systems and two secondary systems attempting to find as great a variety as possible. One of each of these will be a "major" system in common use in commercial buildings. The others shall be unusual systems, at one of which promotes economical energy use. “

the new requirements are reduced.  Each team will analyze:

• One “major” system – e.g. CAV
• One “minor” or unusual system – e.g. wind scoop

Assignment Posting Requirements

Recently we’ve had several teams who have not posted the URL to both the Submit DB and to the VistaBB.  Also we’ve had students who turned in their teamwork assessments late.  We’ve been lenient with them

Henceforth we’re going to be rigid about those requirements.  Each member of the team should check that the assignments are submitted correctly to avoid all suffering.

A3–General Comments from the Grader

Hi everyone, everyone in my section did well receiving a B or higher. It is clear that you are all beginning to understand the delivery process of this course and engineering communication as a whole. It should be noted though that many of the groups were deducted points for misspelling words and unclear writing. Though this is a small portion of points in these assignment, it is one of the most important things to make sure you are doing correctly in your professional work, simply because no one is going to listen to you if you cannot even spell correctly.

The information provided regarding structural systems was well done and very relevant to the goals of this class. Do not forget to argue the negative though to be complete in your discussions. Why is a system appropriate and why is a system also inappropriate? Both factors are important to consider when making engineering decisions.

Anyway, good job again everyone!

A2–Student Comments & Suggestions

Below are student comments and suggestions.   I’ve added a response below each one. 

Jim Mitchell

“.. .Although this should be the student’s responsibility, a possible way to ensure that students fully understanding each topic would be to ask one student to do the calculations, then have another student write an explanation of how the calculations were performed. This would force the students to interact and discuss the process, but may not be necessary for those students who are self-motivated and eager to take part in learning about each system for their assigned building.

JEM – Nice suggestion.  I hope you follow it in future.

It may also be beneficial for the students to present the system that they did not do the research/calculations for. This would force them to get a full understanding of how the system is reflected in their building, rather than just focusing on one individual system. By combining the understanding of the Architectural, Structural and HVAC systems an understanding of the entire building, inside and out, is developed. The students are then able to see how the design of the structure affects the design of the mechanical systems, or vice versa. Knowing how these systems interact and how they influence the overall design is an important concept that is integral to move forward as an architectural engineer.”

JEM – again a nice suggestion, well worth following.

“This assignment could be improved with more help on choosing a building. As students we are still learning about buildings and I feel that a very difficult part of this assignment, for our group, was choosing a building. With more guidelines on how to choose a building and what to look for in a building that is manageable, the building selection process would have gone a lot smoother.”

JEM – I’d argue that almost any building would suffice.  There isn’t a perfect one.  Making quick decisions is a useful skill as well.

“This assignment was a large workload in a very small time frame. The temptation is to suggest eliminating some of the assignments or giving the students more time. While I would appreciate both of those, I realize that this workload prepares us for not only senior design, but also the real world. Some elements of this assignment that seem unnecessary are the amount of focus placed on the architectural system. Perhaps I am just biased as an engineer, but the architectural calculations seem to serve little purpose, and I think the analysis section would be adequate. I also don't think it should be necessary to include the Sketch-up file unless the student decided to alter the model for extra credit. It is just the model pulled off of Google's 3D warehouse.”

JEM – This is a reasonable critique.  My response is that understanding the architecture of the building and the architect’s goals is important to the engineering, and not something usually taught in engineering classes

“Some suggestions for this project in the future are that the students should make sure to choose a structure that is reasonable to perform load calculations on.  They should understand that even though most of this project is speculative, choosing a building that can provide you with at least some information is a better idea.  There was some information on our building but none of it was able to help us with the load calculations so all of our calculations are mostly approximations.  Choosing a smaller yet innovative building is probably the best way to go so it isn't too overwhelming.”

JEM – This is reasonable as well.  My thought on not limiting your choices to fairly small buildings (as we do for the rest of the assignments in this course), is that it’s OK to approximate for really big and unusual buildings, and that they can/should be inspiring to an engineer.

* Our group found Architectural Record to be very helpful in our search for information and especially detailed drawings.  - JEM – Good

* While the project calculations are fairly straightforward, any small mistake can add a large degree of error to an already rough-estimate. Especially in the Fall Semester, a short review/overview session of the HVAC and structural calculations necessary may be helpful to student who have not taken or may have forgotten information from pre-requisite courses This seems as if it is asking for the cooling load during the winter: "length of the cooling season" could be changed to "length of the heating season," to clarify its meaning.

JEM – These are good suggestions too.  For the instructors it’s always a balance of time.  We will be providing those reviews as we get to the systems on the other assignments.

Also, your clarification suggestion is worthwhile.

A2- Grader’s Comments

Grader 1

Hi all, congratulations on another good assignment. The class as a whole performed very well.

A few things to note,

• when providing calculations, keep in mind the goal of this is to be able to present them in such a way that your audience can easily interpret and understand your assumptions, process, and results. Many of the groups did this well, keep doing what you're doing.
• The organization of the websites have improved a lot since the beginning of this class. They are much easier to navigate through and understand. When organizing drawings, however, some groups did not clearly title what was being shown. For example, calling a drawing "North Section" or "Ground Floor Plan" as oppose to "Section" or "Floor Plan" tells a lot more about what is being shown.

These are all just little things that will make your work better though, as I said before, the work as a whole is excellent. Keep up the good work everyone!

Grader 2

I'm sure by now you are becoming much more proficient with Google Sites.  The organization of the websites and use of features demonstrated this.  I was very impressed by the variety of buildings students selected.  Many of the choices were original and visually interesting buildings.

• Students should remember that teamwork evaluations must be submitted within one day after the assignment due date.  The teamwork evaluations cannot be submitted for re-grading.  Many students included the tasks assigned to each group member, but failed to evaluate their performance.  This is a critical part of the evaluation.
• Several groups failed to attach a SketchUp file of the building model, yet included screenshots of the model in the website.  Please follow the rubric carefully.
• Students should also remember to proofread their work.  Several assignments were filled with typos.  Having the assignment look like this really discredits any point you are trying to make. 
• From now on, most of the assignments will include the presentation of calculations and data.  Remember that this data should be reported in a neat format that is easy to follow.  A great way to do this is by creating tables.  A few of the groups created tables of calculations in Excel and took a screenshot of them.  This seemed to work well.
• Please remember that you have one week to resubmit the assignment for re-grading.  (due Oct 18).  Once again, great work!
  

A1a–Revit - Grader’s Comments

Grader #1

Once again, everyone did really well for the most part. It is critical however, to read all of the instructions carefully, the rubric AND the directions. The instructions ask for very certain specifics of how to present your work. In my experience, when sending plans out it was necessary to ensure that the plans were scaled correctly and printed to PDF on the correct size paper, typically 30" x 42". We would never send a Revit model and expect the receiver to decipher through them because this could create unnecessary ambiguities. The great thing about this class is that it prepares us for real world aspects of engineering jobs besides analyzing a truss or calculating HVAC loads. It also teaches us how to deliver our work.

Grader #2

From the majority of the student feedback, it seemed as if students enjoyed this assignment and found the Revit tutorial to be very helpful. For most students, this was the first time they used Revit and they seem eager to learn more about it.

The grading of this assignment was a little different than A1. A grading form in BBVista was used, indicating the performance for each criteria.

Several students did not submit the Revit model to BBVista. This is explicitly stated in the projects deliverables. No points were awarded if the model was not submitted. A surprising number of students forgot to dimension a continuous wall that is 10x the number of letters in their last name on their .pdf drawing sheet. This was listed in the Assignment details, which are very important to read.

Part of the “Sheet Exists” criteria was that students submit a 30”x42” drawing sheet. The majority of students turned in an 8.5”x11” pdf. Because the Revit sheet was created at 30”x42” and printed at 8.5”x11”, the drawings were not to scale. Although no points were deducted for submitting an 8.5”x11” sheet, please be mindful that by reducing to this page size the aspect ratio of the drawing changed.

A1–Student Suggestions–With comments

Below are some of the suggestions that the graders pulled from your sites.  In most cases I’ve added a comment, indicated by “JEM”.  These comments are Prof. Mitchell’s – Prof. Dasaro may have other opinions.

“Instead of a website, use a blog to allow the teams to post updates about their assignments.”
JEM – as this site indicates, blogs are a great idea.  Surveys of prior classes indicate that few view blogs regularly.  I am considering experimenting with Google+

“As the first assignment of this course, it does a very good job of familiarizing the student with the required work that is expected throughout the term. This assignment could be improved if it contained a research section pertaining to the basics of building systems. I believe that it would be a valuable learning tool that would help jump start this course and help the student become more aware of the concepts.” - 
JEM – you want MORE work in 2 days?

“A suggested improvement for this assignment is the addition of a short tutorial for creating a website. Although I found that exploring Google Sites to be rewarding, it was not an efficient use of time since the process was not entirely intuitive. Most students revealed having no experience creating a website when polled in class. Spending 15 minutes in class could have saved time early in this assignments.” 
JEM – Please ask in class if you want a tutorial on anything.

“...If the class database and the search tool could be explained in the directions then I think that would be helpful. The example of someone's work that I saw in class from last year answered any doubts that I had about whether my web page was done correctly.”
JEM – Yes, we should do that and hopefully will in future.

“...It took me a little time to figure out the sidebar on Google sites. I would suggest maybe putting a link to one of the YouTube videos on how to create a sidebar in Google sites. Also, maybe add a section where we could talk about the definition on a "system", because I felt like that was a larger part of our first class. “ –
JEM good suggestions.  - I’ve made a note for spring.

“State which part of the course they are most excited about, and which they are not so much. These choices could be reviewed at the end of the term. Write about teamwork based on prior experience, and what they deem to be important. Give some examples based on the video of different buildings of how the most important systems vary with structure type.” –
JEM - All good suggestions.   I always worry about adding too much workload.

“...instead of continuously making a new web page for each following assignment, would be to instead have this web page created to be a place to upload all of the following work. This way this assignment would not only be the tutorial, but also the backbone for all submissions. Also uploading assignments would be easier as the TAs would only need to visit each students page and see if there is a new attachment or not.” –
JEM – You are welcome to approach do this from now on.  Please, however, give the link directly to the assignment page for the submissions.  It makes the grader’s work easier – the work hard as it is.

“...having a link to a tutorial or a demo on how to use Google Sites. Once an understanding of the page creator is gained the assignment is not hard, however with no knowledge of how to work Google Sites, the assignment is very difficult. The more advanced features that are being asked to make a page look clear are not easily accessible without an introduction to the software.”
JEM – Understood

“...organize the BBVista site in a more organized fashion with regards to the assignments. If all of the resources necessary to complete the assignment were presented on the same page, there would be less confusion...”
JEM – Heard, but not necessarily agreed with.  I believe breaking them up as we have will enable easy reference throughout the term.

“Having had no experience with creating websites before and with the first week of classes and scheduling being as hectic as they are, having some more time to complete this assignment would be a huge plus.  Even an extra day or two would suffice.”
JEM – understood and appreciated, but I’ve not been able to find the time in the rest of the term to make this work well.

“I think it would have been helpful to show examples of successful websites in class to help the students know what is expected...The criteria was very helpful and descriptive, but specifically I mean the visual expectation of the web page. I think it also would have been helpful as to why we are completing this assignment in the form of a web page...I was not sure what this had in relation to the rest of the class or if it was simply just a creative way to ask students to submit their assignment. I do think it was a great idea to ask students the questions that are in the criteria because I really did learn a lot about the course in the process, which will in turn help me prepare for the course.”
JEM – We did point you to past examples.  In fact the visual expectations were very low.  Most people added their own expectations – which weren’t required for a good grade, but would assist in future sites.

“Because students can review the website that were created in the past, it will be helpful to add a page at the end of the term that looks back the term and briefly address what skill is actually gained or developed and vice versa. By having this page, future students can have better view of what to really expect to get out of this course.”
JEM – Good suggestion, one that I hope you follow for yourself.  In fact we do that at the end of AE-391

“Since this class is focused a lot on teamwork I think that the collaboration of the team should start at the beginning with the first assignment. Each person should still individually design their own website but they should work together in doing so and also brainstorm ideas for what they think is important in having a successful team.”
JEM – good idea, but I believe it’s too much to ask for a 2-day assignment.

“Students should be required to revise their sites at the end of the term and update them with what they have done so far in the term. At the end of the 390/391 series, students should create new sites showing their completed projects as if they were trying to sell their project to an investor.”
JEM – Great idea – I hope you do it for yourself, but we ask enough of you already that adding this requirement would be a problem

“This assignment can be improved for the next class by learning more in depth about LEED certification. Because we were introduced to LEED buildings in the ‘Performance by Design’ video and how their design complied with the nationally accepted benchmarks, this assignment should learn about the benefits of LEED. Similarly, the assignment could have also asked about what the person thought of LEED, if it is worth it or not.”
JEM – We will talk about LEED throughout the class.

A1–Grader Comments

Web Site Creation

Most students quickly learned how to use Google Sites and professionally outline the requirements of the course sequence.

2nd Grader - Overall the submissions were well organized and contained well thought out responses. A critique I have to offer would be to make use of the organizational tools google sites have to offer. This could be as simple as making a heading underlined with a larger font size to laying out information in a table. A significant number of students did not proofread their work. Keep in mind that this is a good practice to keep as misspelling something in the professional world will seriously discredit what you have to say. Also, be sure to read the directions carefully, delivering all necessary criteria of the assignment. Again, overall the submissions were done very well. You all seem to have picked up how to use Google Sites easily.

 

Detailed Considerations

One noteworthy discrepancy was between the TA grading sheet and the grading rubric. Students were told that for average work (60%) in the “Course Understanding” section, they must summarize what they are asked to do in AE 390. It was the instructors' intent that students provide a detailed outline of each assignment for the term. Instead, several of the students provided only a paragraph or two summary of the assignments without going into detail about each one. Since this was not explicitly stated in the student grading rubric, the instructors decided to give almost full credit if the students did not address each assignment in detail. The professors agreed that not providing an assignment detail would prevent students from fully providing insight about the order of projects. If there is ever a question about what should be provided in an assignment, feel free to ask the instructors in class, the graders or take a look at past assignments. The past submissions are a great resource.

 

Average vs. Excellent Work

Average work accounted for 60% of the possible points while excellent work accounted for the remaining 40%. If students students did not comment on the criteria, all points were deducted for that portion.

 

Extra Credit

A significant portion of the students did not attempt the extra credit. This is a very easy way to make up for lost points in other sections!

About this Blog

We'll use this blog to post announcements and answer questions that are raised throughout this term related to AE-390.  We advise you to subscribe to it via an RSS reader such as Google Reader.  That way you won't have to go into VistaBB to see any changes.  There are many, many blogs available on interesting topics.  A good place to search for others that may interest you is Technorati.