Reflection

AE 481W/482 Course Reflection

Coming in fresh of my summer internship, I was ready to start my senior thesis project. Having received the plans and permissions to use a building designed by the Smith Group, I was excited to get started with my project.

The beginning of the fall, in AE 481, I was initially turned off by all the work and assignments we had to prepare before we could begin our design on our thesis building. Everything seemed to be geared as busy work, and at times the work was not enjoyable. However, as the assignments started to come together, I realized the valuable building background I was finding, and it helped me to prepare the best design proposal I could.

Having completed the work in the previous semester, I was over the first hill and ready to start the larger task of compiling my senior thesis project. Setting a schedule according to guidelines given in the AE 482 class, I began my work and succeeded in setting a fair pace to finishing my project. Motivation quickly became hard to come by at times when class work was coming due, and I slowly fell behind my schedule. The devices set up in AE 482 kept me on my schedule and I succeeded in completeing my thesis on time. In retrospect, I wish I had set a more stringent scheule and tried harder to abide by it's bounds.

CPEP & Discussion Board Reflection

The CPEP website turned out to be a handy tool during the duration of my senior thesis project. At first, when there was still very little information on the site, the site was more of a hinderance and an annoyance to update. As the semester progressed however, the site became very useful, and worth the effort of posting the various thesis projects. The final result is a well designed webpage that highlights the important aspects of the assignment, and it doubles as a useful web portfolio.

Unofrutantely, I did not take full advantage of the discussion boards. When posed with design questions, I either made use of my faculty consultants or sent a direct email to a person I was sure would be able to respond. This limited me in the affect that I never got critique information from multiple sources so I could catalog the information to come up with the best possible outcome. In retrospect, I should have taken more advantage of this tool.

ABET Outcome Survey
The Capstone Project Electronic Portfolio (CPEP) is a web-based project and information center. It contains material produced for a year-long Senior Thesis class. Its purpose, in addition to providing central storage of individual assignments, is to foster communication and collaboration between student, faculty consultant, course instructors, and industry consultants. This website is dedicated to the research and analysis conducted via guidelines provided by the Department of Architectural Engineering. For an explanation of this capstone design course and its requirements click here.
This Page was last updated on October 20, 2005 , By Brad Hartman and is hosted by the AE Department ©2005
User Note:
Note: While great efforts have been taken to provide accurate and complete information on the pages of CPEP, please be aware that the information contained herewith is considered a work-in-progress for this thesis project. Modifications and changes related to the original building designs and construction methodologies for this senior thesis project are solely the interpretation of Brad Hartman. Changes and discrepancies in no way imply that the original design contained errors or was flawed. Differing assumptions, code references, requirements, and methodologies have been incorporated into this thesis project; therefore, investigation results may vary from the original design.