Fall 2009 Newsletter - M E Rinker Sr School of Building Construction ...

MEACThe Mechanical and Electrical Academic Consortium (MEAC)is an alliance of academic institutions, industry associations, contractors,foundations, and manufacturers to create a quality poolof university educated managers to enter the mechanical/electricalconstruction industry by fostering and improving mechanical/electricaluniversity programs. A short course is held three days priorto the National Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Meetingto cover Mechanical and Electrical Fundamentals for ASC facultyand provide them with course materials. This year, the short coursewas held at University of Florida on March 30, 31, and April 1,just prior to the start of the ASC meeting. In addition to Mechanicaland Electrical Fundamentals, the short course covered lighting,estimating and scheduling, testing and balance and system commissioning.Short course participants had the opportunity to participate in athree-hour laboratory held in the Rinker Hall Mechanical and ElectricalLaboratory in addition to all the lectures they received. Thehands on laboratories are some of the exercises that Rinker studentsperform in their Mechanical and Electrical courses. Student volunteersled the exercises. Some of the exercises included wiringan electrical panel and devices, dry fitting a drain, waste and ventsystem, a testing and balance exercise, blower speed changes, andworking with an operating refrigeration unit and use of an infraredcamera.Representatives from eighteen ASC ConstructionPrograms from around the U.S. participate inmechanical and electrical laboratories.BCN Student Adam Milner (left) instructsASC faculty on the use of an air flowhood.BIMLab participants use an infrared camera.Autodesk, Inc. provided a one day pre-conference event on topicsof Thought Leadership and Building Information Modeling for facultyattending the 45th Annual ASC Conference hosted by Universityof Florida’s Rinker School of Building Construction. The eventprovided lively interactive discussions on the issues surroundingthe teaching of BIM in academia along with hands-on immersioninto the key underpinnings for Revit Architecture. The audiencewas fully engaged and there was no shortage of questions. Facultylearned the value of BIM along with other visualization and coordinationreview tools such as NavisWorks. Faculty were energizedby what they learned and felt enabled in sharing the knowledge withtheir students.Sincere thanks to John Herridge, AIA, Building Solutions Specialistfor Autodesk Worldwide Education Programs for offering thisworkshop.Back Row: Elbert Spiedel - Cal Poly SLO, David Rogge-Oregon State Univ., John Herridge – Autodesk, Todd Dunn– Rochester Inst. of Tech., Carlos Salgado-Univ. of Maryland,Paul Weber – Cal Poly SLO; Front Row: Farid Sabongi - MinnesotaState Univ., Kurt Hofmeister - Bowling Green StateUniv., James Jenkins – Purdue Univ., Ismail Basha - GeorgiaSouthern Univ., Tammy McCuen - Univ. of Oklahoma, andJohn Schmidt – Ferris State Univ.25