Congratulations to the students from the Peninsula One Team that were selected to travel to Washington DC on April 21st to present their term project in the ACE National Competition. The other team selected as finalists are:
The ACE Mentor Program of Frederick, MD
The ACE Mentor Program of Kansas City, MO; and
The ACE Mentor Program of San Francisco, CA.
Congratulations to all of you.
ACE Mentor Bay Area Newsletter 2007 – 2008
March 8, 2008
The ACE Mentor newsletter for the San Francisco Affiliate has been published for the year. Check out the link below to get an update on the teams throughout the Bay Area:
ACE Mentor – San Francisco Bay Area – Newsletter 2007 - 2008
January 8th Meeting – Spaghetti Tower Build & Code Discussion
January 14, 2008
This session started with Michael Nelson (Skanska) leading a spaghetti tower build activity. The activity was intended to introduce the students to a general contractor’s and construction manager’s focus on the scope, schedule, and budget of a construction project.
- The scope of the project was to build the tallest tower possible with the given materials (a box of spaghetti and a bag of large marshmallow)
- The schedule of the project was 30 minutes.
- The budget was determined by the amount of time spent on the design phase ($1 Million per minute) and the time spent on the construction phase ($2 Million per minute).
Refer to the pictures below of the tower building activity.
The second half of the meeting was used to introduce the student to building codes and why they are necessary. This part of the discussion was led by Dora Chan (Stoeker and Northway Architects), Jon Chan (Stoeker and Northway Architects), and Jani Nair (City of San Jose).
December 19th Meeting – Work on Term Project
January 14, 2008
On the session before the holidays, the group worked on the term project. Many design ideas were discussed as the group worked towards a cohesive conceptual design for the “Shelter in a Storm” Term Project.
As you research design ideas for your “Shelter in a Storm” House, I thought you might be interested in the following unique houses:
FACTOR 10 HOUSE – This house was built in Chicago a few years ago in an attempt to incorporate sustainable elements into a residential design. The diagram below showcases some of the more unique features of this house. You can found out more about this house at:
Factor 10 House at AIA Website
(Click on the diagram below for a larger version)
BIG DIG HOUSE – In Boston there has been a huge construction project going on for years to replace the main roads through the center of the city. Some of the construction materials that were used for temporary structures or roadways on the project were scheduled to be hauled to a landfill — that is until a team of designers and construction professionals came up with a idea to reuse some of these construction materials to build a house (picture below). This house demonstrates that recycled material can be an important source of construction materials for new homes.
You can found out more about the house and its recycled components at:
December 5 Meeting – Term Project
December 5, 2007
During this session, we reviewed the “Shelter in a Storm” Term Project in detail and began sketching conceptual drawings. Each student started by sketching out their ideas. Then we divided into two groups and each student presented their ideas to one another. Each of the two groups will combine their design ideas into one house design. During all this hard work by the students, we found time for a quick pizza and soda break (thanks to Skanska for sponsoring this part of the session)
The presentation that I covered during the class can be found at:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dczmprm5_10348qj6w
The updated schedule for the balance of the program can be found at the link on the right hand side of this blog or at the link below:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=piYaFiL13pyMYgUxfLLc6Mw
Pictures of the students working on their designs follow:
Slideshow on YouTube from First Annual ACE National Design Competition
November 27, 2007
As we work on our term project for the national design competition, I thought the group would like to see the video slideshow from the First Annual ACE National Design Competition which was held last year. Link below:
Updated Schedule — Check Out Link ==>
November 27, 2007
Jani and I have updated the schedule for our next session. Refer to the link on the right hand side of this page entitled, “Peninsula One Team Schedule” under the heading of “Blogroll”.
You will see that we are going to spend the next session developing your ideas for the term project. A link to the term project information can be found at (the file is large and may take a minute to download):
Scholarships for ACE Students!
November 26, 2007
The following scholarship information was taken from the ACE San Francisco Two Team’s website. Thanks to Melanie LaPointe at Swinerton for giving our team access to this site.
This list will be continually updated with information on available scholarships related to the fields of ACE, so keep checking back!
1) National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME)
NACME is the nation’s largest privately funded source of scholarships for underrepresented minority engineering students. Our scholarship program focuses on providing financial support to deserving African American, American Indian and Latino students, encouraging our university partners to develop effective recruitment and retention strategies and supplying industry with a steady stream of engineering school graduates. Since 1980, more than 20,000 NACME scholars have earned degrees and entered the engineering, science and technology workforce.
http://www.nacme.org/scholarships/
2) Construct My Future
ConstructMyFuture scholarships will be offered to students and/or construction industry professionals to be used for higher education or applied to the purchase price of tools for those who are entering or working in the industry. Three scholarships of $1,000 each will be awarded to three individuals for college expenses or for the purchase of construction tools.
http://www.constructmyfuture.com/Students/Scholarships/Scholarships.asp
November 20 Meeting – Architecture
November 21, 2007
The group met at the design office of Fergus Garber Group (FGG) to learn more about architecture. Craig Stark (Architect at FGG) led the session, beginning with an office tour followed by a discussion on the topic of “What does an Architect do?”
Once the group learned about the design profession and the technology involved, it was time to put the mentees to work. The students were tasked with designing a dog house given the following requirements: door, window, sloped roof, minimum size of 4′ x 6′, and the design must be an original.
The teams started out by sketching their ideas on tracing paper and then finalized their plans using the drafting program Sketch-up. You can download your own copy of Sketch-up at the following link:
http://sketchup.google.com/download.html
Photos from the session can be found below:
