Visa resultat

BOM-Structural design 2012, BOM170

Learning outcomes and examination

1. Are the goals reasonable considering your background and the number of credits?

No, the goals are set too low»		0		0%
Yes, the goals seem reasonable»		32		100%
No, the goals are set too high»		0		0%

Genomsnitt: 2

- Not bad, considering that it was the first try.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- Although time spent doesn"t allow for equal study of the other course - which many feel is more practically applicable and important. However, this course was enjoyable, interesting and contained a lot of useful information about design and structural engineering which I think wouldn"t have been learned otherwise.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)
- I think some students were better prepared for this course than others, especially in terms of being used to working in projects and making independent decisions.» (Yes, the goals seem reasonable)

2. To what extent have you reached the learning outcomes?

0-20%»		0		0%
20-40%»		0		0%
40-60%»		1		3%
60-80%»		12		37%
80-100%»		19		59%

Genomsnitt: 4.56

- Less design of models and design overall - I feel - and more focus on structural systems and structural behaviour with respect to forms and shapes» (40-60%)
- don" really know since we have not got any results or feedback yet. » (60-80%)
- I have learned a lot from this course, more than expected!» (80-100%)
- I think there could be more focus on understanding the force paths and the mechanichal behaviour of structures. Perhaps there could be specific, non-project related, tasks to solve in order to practice in the beginning of the course.» (80-100%)
- Nobody talked about costs although this is always the main issue in the later professional life... Maybe you can include that somehow next time.» (80-100%)
- There was good cooperation between the architectural and civil engineering teaching stuff, that managed more or less to transmit the most important parts of structural design.» (80-100%)
- How to achieve more efficient structures. It was hard to start from a desired flow of forces and find an efficient structure, could need some more guidance on how to start from that point of view. In our project it was more about getting an idea of an expression and then from there try to find smart solutions, which although helped by many iterations could be hard to succeed with in an optimal way.» (80-100%)
- I think more focus » (80-100%)

3. Did the examination assess whether you have reached the goals?

32 svarande

No, not at all»		1		3%
To some extent»		10		31%
Yes, definitely»		17		53%
I don"t know/have not been examined yet»		4		12%

Genomsnitt: 2.75

- Less focus on presentations - which although were very enjoyable and also helpful for the future - some kind of report or exam would be good for knowledge I think - as in the structural system course.» (No, not at all)
- It was a bit difficult to show all the work you had done in just an oral presentation. The process pdf shows more but I got the impression that it is not as important for the grade. » (To some extent)
- Was very different among the group members. Some "yes, definitley" others "not as much"» (To some extent)
- I think the jury could have been better informed that the task was not to design in detail all parts of the bridge.» (To some extent)
- It was good with the peacha kucha (don´,t know how to spell it) format!» (Yes, definitely)
- The project was done in several steps, it was evaluated again and again, and the final seminar was really interesting.» (Yes, definitely)
- Of course I don"t know my grade yet. But I think the format of the course was very good. I have some comments though: It would be useful to know how much calculations "preliminary sizing" entailed. Perhaps a simple example? As it was, I felt some students felt safe in the calculations and wasted too much time on them, rather than using them to influence their design, which I saw as the main objective. Also, I though the phase with three bridges was simply too difficult. The site should have been a consideration from the beginning: now we were faced with juggling more advanced calculations and also adapting our designs to the site in the same phase, which was very stressful. Both the phase before and after went much better and were more instructive, I thought.» (I don"t know/have not been examined yet)

Teaching and learning

4. To what extent has the organised teaching activities been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		2		5%
Some extent»		10		29%
Large extent»		12		35%
Great extent»		10		29%

Genomsnitt: 2.88

- FEEDBACK The feedback after each phase has sometimes been put forward in a quite negative way, despite the fact that some quite brilliant and interesting ideas have been presented. Instead of aknowleding the good examples and point out interesting directions to develop ideas in, examples of bad design have been discussed: "I do not see how this could work, this is not a good way". It would have been more constructive to hear "This is an example of a good representation that would become eaven better if this and that was clarified" or "this is an example of a well considered design proposal". In other words, guide the students by pointing on the good examples rather than the bad, we understand when a solution is bad if we know what is considered as a good one, however we will never know what a good design is if we only are told what a bad one is. PRESENTATIONS The Pechi Kucha format was a good way of presenting the work in each phase, however there were too little qualitative group specific discussion afterwards.» (Some extent)
- I think "organised" was a strong word at times. The tasks changed quickly, which is to be expected since it was the first time the course was held, but it is very frustrating for the students.» (Some extent)
- Maybe more supervision could be scheduled. It would be good to maybe sit down once a week with one of the teachers and assess the work so far and if we are thinking in the right direction.» (Some extent)
- Mostly inspiring to participate in lectures.» (Some extent)
- The learning was mostly achieved from working within the group and discussing different ideas and solutions. Especially good with this were the different point of views from architectural and structural engineering students.» (Some extent)
- The lectures were more like inspiration, i think we learnt the most in the group work. Very good system! » (Large extent)
- Great with lectures both from the engineering and architectural point of view. For me, as a civil engineer, it was a whole new way of thinking.» (Large extent)
- Would be good with a clearer discernment of the different parts that should be be carried out by the students. However, it was good during the course, but I think it can be even better. Perhaps you can use Gantt charts in order to distinctly illustrate the intended working progress.» (Large extent)
- Very good teachers, it is clear that you like what your are doing and that affects the students!» (Great extent)
- The lectures were the most useful and enjoyable part of this course - mainly because of the passion of the teatchers and the many interesting examples which were presented and discussed during the lectures.» (Great extent)
- bit hard with uncoordinated teachers» (Great extent)
- Study trips, inspiring lectures, lots of seminars, enough activities I think to enhance our learning. » (Great extent)
- Very good. A comment to Mario and Björn, though: please use more positive examples! It"s easier to learn what to DO, rather than what NOT to do (for example when drawing force diagrams). Your constructive advice was very helpful.» (Great extent)

5. To what extent has the teaching material and the course home page been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		10		29%
Some extent»		12		35%
Large extent»		7		20%
Great extent»		5		14%

Genomsnitt: 2.2

- You can"t studie good design in a book since the problem to solve is to complex and situation specific. Good discussions and feedback processes are the best way to learn and identify risks, unceartenties and potentials.» (Small extent)
- Too few books and they are too expensive to buy - however I applaud the choice of the books - both books are incredibly interesting and useful - I think. The lecture powerpoint - although they were good - couldn"t really be used that much when performning the design task. Perhaps mainly because the short time afforded to the subtasks - thus one couldn"t explore literature much or even consider as much as we might have wanted to do.» (Small extent)
- What teaching material? » (Small extent)
- The lectures is what I mostly used.» (Some extent)
- Form and forces is a great book, and so is Detail engineering, but the field we had to cover I think went a bit beyond the topics covered in form and forces especially. » (Some extent)
- It was mainly learning by listening and discussing.» (Some extent)
- The initial book was useful and the course home page was fine. I would have liked more examples of engineering presentations (actual force diagrams, the extents of calculations suggested, etc).» (Large extent)

6. How were the opportunities to get feedback and for asking questions and getting help from teachers and supervisors?

Very poor»		0		0%
Rather poor»		0		0%
Rather good»		15		44%
Very good»		19		55%

Genomsnitt: 3.55

- Due to the complexity of the problems, we were some what unable to explain and get relevant feedback when asking questions. The session with Karl-Gunnar was very useful and it would have been good if it could have been aranged to meet the other teachers in a similar way.» (Rather good)
- Maybe one more session like the one with KG would be nice when developing the final proposal. » (Rather good)
- The teachers seemed passionate about the course and it reflected in their wish to aid us - they seemed to have stake in the results, i.e. they wanted us to perform well (which isn"t often the feeling students have - in my opinion of course).» (Rather good)
- Good to have the gallery critique, but in many cases contraditory response from the different teachers. » (Rather good)
- It was a good dialogue» (Very good)
- All the teachers were helpful and almost always we got a constructive criticism which helped us to develop our concept. » (Very good)
- All the teachers were available many times during the week. Great help! » (Very good)

Course organisation

7. How well did the course organisation, course information, course home page, handouts etc work?

Very badly»		0		0%
Rather badly»		2		5%
Rather well»		20		58%
Very well»		12		35%

Genomsnitt: 3.29

- Could very much be improved. Seemed very confusing sometimes, like the teachers had no good organisations, changed a lot of things during the course. » (Rather badly)
- It felt like it was quite a big gap between what the teachers of architecture wanted us to achieve compared to the teachers of engineering. It was difficult to satisfy both.» (Rather well)
- Some minor organisation problems happened like the day when the guest bridge engineers were at the university and we din´,t know.» (Rather well)
- Would say that this has been rather ok - especially considering that this is the first time this course has run. In light of that I would say that I"m impressed with the structure of the course - and I also like that the teachers asked us for our opinion and more often than not changed the course based on those discussions - an example of that would be the pecha kucha presentations - which I think were not planned for that many presentations to begin with. Also, the choice of not demanding posters - which I would think would had made many students upset and rather stressed.» (Rather well)
- Considering that it was the first time for this course I think it worked very well but improvements of the handouts and more consistent information would be nice. Also, the teachers from the architecture department were quite bad at keeping time.» (Rather well)
- could have been good with the assignments some earlier, thick specially assignment 3 came out a bit late» (Rather well)

Study climate

8. To what extent have the facilties at Chalmers been appropriate to support your studies in this course, e.g. lecture halls, study rooms, equipment, computer labs etc.

Small extent»		1		3%
Some extent»		9		27%
Large extent»		18		54%
Great extent»		5		15%

Genomsnitt: 2.81

- Since there where a big focus on making models, despite the fact that physical modelling is not a learning outcome, an introduction to the A-workshop would have been good.» (?)
- Hard to find a good workspace.» (Small extent)
- Our study rooms are not suited for modelwork, howewer it was fully possible to fulfill the tasks.» (Some extent)
- There is always a lack of space in V-huset. » (Some extent)
- Has really nothing to do with the course - but generally I think there is to little room in the V-building and you can"t really expect to find room if you"re not there very early or rather late. The organisation about the materials of the models and how to build them could be improved I think - especially because most of the students in the course are structural engineering students and have never built models before - and not all of the groups had an architect student.» (Some extent)
- It was great that we got a room to store our models, but it smelled too bad to work there...» (Some extent)
- Its not so comfortable to sit in the small studyrooms during lectures. » (Large extent)
- We V-students got the impression that we weren"t really welcome in the "Snickeriet" at A. We had an AT-student in our group and we became very dependant on her to get material. Other groups who didn"t have an AT-student had some problems in the beginning as they didn"t know how to get the material.» (Large extent)
- More information about the tools in Snickeriet would have been nice. The groups with architects in them had a great advantage in being able to visualize their concepts and building models. » (Large extent)
- needed a great bit a ATstudents to get the material » (Large extent)
- Sometimes hard to find computers in the V-department. Great to have access to "snickeriet" when building the models, especially good to have an architect student in the group with knowledge about the laser cutter and so on. Some groups would have benefitted from getting access to these facilities from the start of the course.» (Large extent)

9. How much of your available time for studies in this study period did you spend on this course?

34 svarande

less than 20%»		0		0%
20-40%»		1		2%
about 50%»		12		35%
60-80%»		19		55%
more than 80%»		2		5%

Genomsnitt: 3.64

- It was my only course» (about 50%)
- From 40 to 50%. Our group meetings were long lasting, but very beneficial, as we had nice discussions and opinions exchanging during those meetings.» (about 50%)
- It was high workload!» (60-80%)
- It took too much time to build all the models. And also for some presentations we had only a few days too prepare since we had a lecture on wednesday about the content of this task and presentation on monday.» (60-80%)
- I think it was a very time-consuming course, with short deadlines and massive work-load. That took focus from the steel course.» (60-80%)
- Often in group work courses like this one it"s unavoidable that most of the time will go to the course - even though many student would want to perhaps focus on the other course more - one really can"t do that without disrespecting the group ethic - which no one would do. However, I believe this course will be better in the future in this regard - if the teachers keep their open mind - without the teachers ability to listen and discuss, the course would have taken even more time and not recieve good feedback from students - I would think.» (60-80%)
- This was a very demanding course, especially for students with an architectural background, since they became project leaders and took a greater responsibility for the design process.» (60-80%)
- Det var en väldigt tung kurs! För många tidskrävande moment.» (60-80%)
- To much» (more than 80%)

10. How was the course workload?

Too low»		0		0%
Low»		0		0%
Adequate»		9		26%
High»		19		55%
Too high»		6		17%

Genomsnitt: 3.91

- Its was a very good level. We were able to accomplish much, and we had time to reflect on our descisions.» (Adequate)
- Almost too high!» (High)
- Constant high work load from the start to the end of the course.» (High)
- Very high when there was short time for a task, otherwise it was adqequate.» (High)
- Considering that work would have been twice with two courses like regular it would have been a little bit too much.» (High)
- A bit to high - but mainly because of the short time between presentations - perhaps even the work load out by having less presenations but more comprehensive ones? Worth discussing atleast I think.» (High)
- The work was high pace but not too much. Though, some of the teachers had a kind of unrealistic view of how much you could accomplice in the given time.» (High)
- High work load, as it contained architectural and civil engineering view, which adds restrictions from both sides, that need more investigation. Also, designing a bridge is always a very demanding process. » (High)
- It felt as we were expected to put our weekends on this course. Assignments were presented to late and we ended up having only a few days to do a lot!» (Too high)
- High pace throughout the course which was both good and bad. It pushed us to work hard and produce new material for each presentation but sometimes it could be a bit too rushed as well. I felt that the result would be better with more time to develop the ideas further and have more time for trial and error since it wasn"t until we could calculate further into the concepts when we realised if they were good or perhaps unrealistic.» (Too high)
- It was to much to do! Reduce the number of presentation to two. Maybe one with 5 suggestions and one with 1. Or keep 7,3 and 1 but skip the first presentation, which was totally unneassesary! » (Too high)

Summarising questions

11. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		0		0%
Fair»		0		0%
Adequate»		3		9%
Good»		18		54%
Excellent»		12		36%

Genomsnitt: 4.27

- Could be better organised. » (Adequate)
- Can still be improved but was already very good.» (Good)
- Excellent lectures, most interesting subject - i.e. structural engineering with respect to design with focus on form and forces. The high work load and the building of models brings it down from excellent to good for me. » (Good)
- The most "giving" feature of the course was collaborating with an AT-student and thinking in new ways. But, the work load was too high and the stress level high.» (Good)
- It started very well. But it seemed like it was some disagreement between teachers as to what should be included. You could get two different answers on what was supposed to be done, depending on who you asked» (Good)
- Really good course! :) I like that you work with the big pcture and get to use what you"ve learned in the previous courses. It is also great to do something in cooperation with architecture. » (Good)
- fun course, bit hard with knowing what the teachers where after and it seemed like they had widespread ideas of what the course was really abaut. » (Good)
- It was a fun course. Great to have cooperation between architects and structural engineers, it gave a lot of inspiration.» (Good)
- Very nice to work with a more architectural view of a project» (Excellent)
- The best course on chalmers!» (Excellent)
- It was amazing experience for me as a civil engineer to meet the architectural point of view and be part of the conceptual design phase.» (Excellent)
- I think it"s so, so good that this course exists - I"ve missed it until now at the master level. My understanding is that other master programmes often have more open questions/tasks, whereas in MPSEB they are very defined. I think this was super valuable. My only complaint is that there should be courses like this at candidate level for engineers.» (Excellent)

12. What is the remaining value of the course in the future

Very small»		0		0%
Rather small»		1		2%
Neutral»		4		11%
Rahter high»		16		47%
Very high»		13		38%

Genomsnitt: 4.2

- I think we spend to much time on wrong things. Do you know how much time building a model does take? imagine that for 7 and it is to much. Better to spend time on things we actually can get something from.» (Neutral)
- It gives some confidence about beeing able to deal with structural design, howerver I find it hard to claim the right to work with theese issues as one of the first tasks when wmployed, much more experience is needed.» (Rahter high)
- If you want to continue and improve this course I would recommend to have a look at this: http://www.uni-weimar.de/archineering/ This is the master programm I´,m taking at my home university and it´,s very similar to your course. It´,s a mixture of arcitecture and engineering. That´,why I felt quite comfortable with this course - this way of working was not new to me and I really enjoy it.» (Rahter high)
- Most interesting course with much needed and obscure information I thought - obscure but most valuable - and I don"t see from where I would else recieve that information - mostly facts about bridges, but also facts about the industry - how the work of an consultant works in relation to other actors.» (Rahter high)
- This was the first time and you changed a few things during the course so I think next year"s course will be better.» (Rahter high)
- Very good with a course where all previous knowledge is gathered.» (Very high)
- It was fun to have such large freedom in the design. » (Very high)
- The context and concept of a structure are two things that are of great importance, both of them. » (Very high)

13. What should definitely be preserved to next year?

14. What should definitely be changed to next year?