- I had a bit of brain wave about how to improve the link and...
- I became horrifically busy and haven’t had the change to implement said wave of the brain.
Three months back I sat in a keynote speech from the head of the IstructE and he talked about the digital revolution. He said a few other things which rang a bell with me. He talked about all the things structural engineers need to be able to do and whilst it was the kind of list you would expect, El Presidente said there was something missing from his list…Digital technologies.....our favourite..
He also said we were the generation that had upwards and downwards learning.In the past the seniors taught the juniors in a downward learning process, but the digital revolution has meant the juniors are often teaching the seniors and that also got my bell a’ ringing. Then I flew out to Autodesk University 2015 and sat in Brian Ringley’s talk on Rhynamo – Case studies. Right at the end of the talk someone asked him what we should be learning (or something similar to that effect) and his answer was that he truly believed that if you aren't bringing programmers into your team you’ll fall by the wayside. It’ll be of little surprise to read that this also had my bell ringing..like a big ole siren alarm.
Now the point about getting programmers into a team is an important one because there is one caveat, or rephrasing, I’d add to that statement. Many of the programmers that were at AU were also architects, either currently or in previous lives. They learnt to programme and applied that learning to their architectural workflows – square hole, square peg. Apply those same workflows to a structural design process and the results can sometimes look like, well a circular peg sticking out of a square hole. That’s no slight on architectural coders, I wouldn't expect an architect to know that I’d like to further increase my interoperability script by adding the limiting temperature of a steel beam from my analysis package to my production model any more than an architect would expect me to understand…well the raft of brilliant aesthetic and functional derivations that I have seen architectural scripts involve and can but marvel at and learn from.
Add to this that the generations coming through after us are going to know even more than us about programming and I truly believe that as structural engineers we need to understand how to programme at a basic level to make the most of the upstairs downstairs (I think it sounds better than upwards/downwards) teaching process that is only going to get more prevalent as years go past.
As an hombre that’s only ever used visual scripting processes like grasshopper and dynamo I've noticed that there aren’t many coding tutorials out there relevant to structures, so as and when I find good resources I’ll try and share them here (spreading the love as Ian in the team likes to call it). Likewise, if you’re reading this and fancy spreading the love in reverse I’d love to hear about where you learnt to script and where you found good relevant information.
Changing the subject back to the talk that got me thinking in the first place, The Vice president of the IstructE, soon to be president also said a fair few things at the ceremony that rang a bell with me. His question was to name our top ten structural heroes.
Where are the structural heroes? Ask anyone to name a structural engineer….they’ll give you Brunel..who else?! Now I’ll give you a list of people I've worked with/continue to work with who do beyond excellent work that inspires me but I think the VP’s point was that in a room full or structural engineers we probably couldn't pull together two to three engineers who would appear on all our collective lists. Even the VP’s list only had one name on it that I had on mine! Incidentally that was, Laurent Ney, who I saw talk at IASS 2015 this year and who makes engineering cool to non-engineers. Have a butchers at the roof of the Amsterdam Maritime Museum…Tres Cool, Tres Bon. Don’t care who you are, that is cool.
So what does this have to do with digital engineering? Well, on the flight out to AU I couldn't help but I wonder if our Vice president missed a trick, I wonder if he’s only partially right about Structural Heroes.Sure we should definitely have more engineering heroes, but doesn't that miss the key of the digital revolution? That digital workflows are bringing us closer with architects and mechanical/electrical engineers and geotechnical engineers and lighting engineers and fire engineers and sustainability engineers and so on and so on that our buildings heroes of the future might not be structural engineers…the boundaries between disciplines may become blurred enough that in a few years time the person that inspires me happens to be an artist* who turns structural design into a whole new spaces…Or perhaps it will be the VR guru who took my structural designs and created a virtual world from them to explore which led to even more exciting design?
I think it’s time to wrap it up there as I imagine anyone who has read this far is most likely thinking “you have time to write this…you got time to perfect Red Panda and share it here too…..so get the hell on with it”….but one last thing before departing: Autodesk University 2015: in short – the highlights:
Dynamo was everywhere!
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| Dynamo to control all your database needs |
3D printing is coming in big time!
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| 3D printed but a bit too revealing for me |
Contractors on major projects are starting to look at model only submissions
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| Yep, that's from a presentation where it's in the contract to provide a model and not 2D shop drawings for approval |
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| But can it make a black yukon sucker punch? |
Autodesk know how to put on a great party and bring people together of all professions!
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| I made a friend. |
*and Finally Finally....as eluded to earlier, Jason Bruge came in for a talk and was inspiring for many reasons but as a man with a healthy obsession with Pandas was particular excellent, so go watch this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCce646GqIE
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