May Extra Blog Post

Recently, I finished a TV series called Prison Break. When I first started watching this TV series, I thought it would just be a bunch murders and thieves trying to break out of prison. However, in the first few episodes, the main character, Michael, is a structural engineer. This is how I started to become more fond of this TV show, because I'm wondering how does a structural engineer break out his brother and a bunch of criminals out of prison. Since Michael was a structural engineer, before he went to prison, he already has knowledge of the entire structure of the prison because he looked into the blueprints of the prison. However, it's impossible for a single person to just memorize an entire blueprint. So before Michael goes to prison, he went to a tattoo shop and tattoos the blueprint of the prison onto his skin by camouflaging the blueprint using a drawing from the Sistine Chapel (I think). From this, Michael uses this blueprint as his advantage and he and his group of buddies later escape the prison.

Of course, I don't want to be a criminal, but I just never would have thought structural engineering would be useful in dire situations, especially in a prison. Anyways, I just wanted to show that having knowledge of building structures can be used in extreme situations and that I really like the show Prison Break.

Here's Michael, the main character of Prison Break.

Blog 22: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

I'm proud of my power point because I created 64 slides for my presentation and I believe this helped me to exceed the required time limit for this block presentation. I'm also proud of creating my activity. I thought my activity tied really well with my first and second answers to my EQ. 

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?
AE

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE/P+

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?
 

My mentorship overall worked really well throughout my senior project because of what I did at mentorship. The AutoCAD work really helped me with a lot of my presentations because it showed not only my work at mentorship, but it also really connected with my EQ. AutoCAD was also important because it was good reference for my foundation and my answer (when I explain the SMRF).

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

I felt like it would have been more beneficial for me to find a class that either taught AutoCAD or the basics of structural engineering. Instead of doing more mentorship, if I could go back in time, I would've taken a class instead of doing more mentorship hours for my independent components. Doing extra mentorship hours consumed a lot of my time and I had a little bit of some time management issues with my classes because of this.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

I'm going to be majoring in electrical engineering, and my mentorship throughout the year helped me get ahead in my major. Most engineers use AutoCAD software and I believe by being just a little familiar with this software will help me progress more in my electrical engineering career. Senior project has also shown me an engineer's daily job. During my mentorship, I met a few younger engineers (there about in their late 20's or early 30's) and most of their job is too just go on AutoCAD software and design and check structures. So this gave me an insight of what my future may hold during my beginnings when I actually become an electrical engineer.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Literal

Link is on the side of my blog labeled mentorship log hours under the heading mentorship.

Contact Name: Tzouh-Jaw Wu
Mentorship Place: Kanda and Tso Consulting Structural Engineers

Interpretive

What is the most important thing you gained from this experience and why?

The experience I gained most from this mentorship was my design in AutoCAD. I do want to purse an engineering career in the future so having a first hand experience with AutoCAD helps be better with a program that I will definitely use in the future. The AutoCAD is extremely cool (although it's not the most updated version), showing how buildings and structures are shaped on paper before it's being built on the ground. This experience also showed me how difficult AutoCAD can be during an engineer's career. There are still many applications that I still need to learn on AutoCAD, or at least I haven't learned the faster methods in drawing structures. Most of the engineers at my mentorship used AutoCAD and used it to communicate with other engineers, which I didn't know until I went to this mentorship.

Applied

How has what you've done helped you to answer your EQ? Please explain.

Most of my mentorship included my time on AutoCAD, designing structures. This was really helped me answer my EQ because it gave me a better foundation leading to my current three answers. My topic, structural engineering, is a complex topic, so having better foundation was really important. For example, my answer 1 focused on particular structure, which came from my AutoCAD work during my mentorship. My mentorship also gave me connections with a lot of engineers that helped give me the ideas to my answers or helped clarify my answers. For example, I was researching seismic analysis and I came across equivalent static analysis. During my interviews, I asked questions regarding equivalent static analysis and was given responses on how this analysis measures a building's acceleration with an earthquake's load. After being given solid information, I then proceeded to make anlaysis as part of my second answer towards my EQ.

Overall, mentorship has given me a hands one experience on the design aspect, AutoCAD, which helped gave me a better foundation on how structures were used for earthquake resistance. This foundation helped inspire me to research other ideas for my answers to my EQ. My mentorship also gave me many important resources by providing lots of professional engineers at my mentorship. These engineers helped me gain many primary sources for my answers, but more clarity on the information of my answers.

April Extra Post

Rivet

article: Rivet Article
My mentor always tells me that his firm should teach this program, rivet to his employees. However, because the program is expensive and takes some time to learn the program, there is only one employee learning how to use Rivet. In this article I read, it seems that Rivet is getting popular in the engineering industry because this program can save lots of time for an engineer to work. Rivet shows the entire BIM model, a 3D image of the entire structure, and through applying the BIM model, engineers can design a building from the ground up. Another major advancement of Rivet is the usage of Autodesk QTO. Autodesk QTO not translates the 3D structures or the 2D structures and accounts what materials are needed to build these structures.

AutoCAD has also improved and can also convert 2D structures into 3D structures. However, the main difference between AutoCAD and Rivet is that Rivet is a single representation of the model of the building whereas AutoCAD, focuses on parts of a building.

    Rivet