Requesting presentation topic ideas 5

[milkshakelake]

I'm going to be giving a 5-10 minute presentation to contractors and architects. I want to get them engaged, have some fun (last time the crowd was drunk by the time presentations started), and leave them with something useful. Any topic ideas would be appreciated!

My initial idea was "Saving money in structures!" but after sending a draft to some people, they said it was too technical and wouldn't appeal to the crowd.

 

[WinelandV]

You could do one on site-fabricated roof joists!

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".

 

[GC_Hopi]

Pick a topic you know... do you specialize in a certain type of construction or structure? Weave in a story (case study with photos is appealing as it has a nature timeline to it).

 

[Lomarandil]

Maybe a handful of case studies when a well timed communication from a contractor or architect to the SE had a positive project impact? Feel good outcome with some positive reinforcement of good behaviors?

----
just call me Lo.

 

[Aesur]

I would think that a presentation as you mentioned would be a good one, but let's be honest, structural costs isn't something they are that concerned about if it gives them the look they want and in the grand scheme of things we almost always make what they want work (to an extent) and the structural cost is a small percentage of the overall construction costs.

Maybe make it a discussion on how parapet heights affect lateral and when used to shield mech units it can destroy shear walls and look at other methods such as inset screen walls or even the screen walls attached to the units themselves.

Discuss the complications of existing buildings, the lack of information and or the issues that arise with the addition of many new openings in shear walls.

A discussion of the importance of coordination (MEP to structural to architectural) would be a good one.

A Q&A session where the contractor and architects can ask why structural does things certain ways could be a fun and interactive discussion.

 

[Brad805]

How to dimension drawings so contractors can build from drawings without endless math. That lets you pick on the architects a bit and make the contractors chuckle. For the contractors maybe a bluebeam exercise so they can check dwgs. I think keeping it light will be best if they are two sheets to the wind.

 

[phamENG]

Do a very brief presentation on CA/QC procedures. When you're done, have a little competition. Hand out shop drawing submittals that have been approved by contractors to the architects, and architectural drawings to the contractors. Every error in the approved shops, the contractors all take a shot. Every error in the architectural drawings, the architects take a shot. The other engineers just hang out, drink, and watch them destroy each other...

 

[Ron247]

With only 5-10 minutes, there are not many serious topics you can cover, so try entertaining them or making them do some thinking. I have used an eraser for several years to illustrate all the things you can do to a "stick-like" structural member. I drew a rectangle on it and can show tension, compression, bending, torque and poisson's ratio fairly quickly.

I actually tell them structures mostly consist of sticks, sheets, strings and springs. I then use the eraser to show all the distortions you can do to a stick-like member. I do not know how many are present in your meeting, but handing them all an eraser with the rectangle drawn on it will give them a shiny object for a few minutes. I generally tell one piece of info for each distortion, tension stretches and is susceptible to fractures, compression creates a stability issue in addition to stress failure, inside of the curve in compression and outside of the curve in tension when being bent; etc.

An explanation of why a wood joist or bar joist wobbles when walked on if they are not laterally braced can be done at the same time. An old wood yard-stick is good for that in addition to the eraser. The attached pictures somewhat illustrate this. The point I end with is that of all things that they can do that eraser is the limit of what can be done to a structural stick-like member such as a beam, column, joist etc. They can do combinations but the individual ways to load or deform a stick is limited.

I would end with a Devil's Hook demonstration.

 

[ALK2415]

make presentation on:
- CFRP rebars (their light-weight, superior strength, and anticorrosive ...)
- or New detection acoustic devices for old structures condition assessment (especially for bridges and mines)

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

You have 5-10 minutes. That's barely enough time to do an introduction.

If you want to grab their attention and hold it, title your presentation something like "S**t that Happens While the Inspector Sleeps" or "Pitfalls of Prioritizing Schedule Over All Else," and then show them a pictures of poor workmanship or damaged materials, like below, and tell a story about how contract documents were, or should have been, written to protect the owners, architects, etc....

Unauthorized field redrill of holes and modified coped section. All driven by pressure to pour the concrete slab at all costs in order to get that sweet construction milestone money....

 

[MotorCity]

How 'bout a plug for what a great resource Eng-tips is? Maybe a shout out to the structural forum?

 

[ThomasH]

I agree with statments that 5-10 minutes is to short to make it a "learning experience". I would not go for any discussione options either. In my experience, 5-10 minutes can be the end discussion after a longer presentation.

Instead, what is your own speciality? Do you have a subject where our own interrest and entusiasm can make them interested. Do that and base it on something like a small project that can be described in a meningfull way in only a few minutes.

Are there more presentations than yours or are you alone? If there is a program, where in the program are you? Perhaps somebody else har already put then to sleep .

Good Luck

Thomas

 

[milkshakelake]

@winelandv I'll pull up that thread and drop the mic

@GC_Hopi Good idea. I know quite a bit about townhouses. Hopefully that doesn't put them to sleep, but one of the other presentations is on "Local law 179" or something.

@Lomarandil You mean like an email or call to solve a problem? I'm not sure how I can turn that into a presentation though.

@Aesur Thanks, that's a lot of ideas! I like the one about coordination with architects/MEP, that could be useful. The QA might work but I'm afraid people will just not volunteer stuff; I can have some backup stuff to do in that case. I was actually thinking of asking people what they want to know during the cocktail session, have my employee tail me and write stuff down, and send it to a different employee for some quick research and make a last minute presentation. That might be too over the top though.

@Brad805 Lol I'm not even sure how to do that myself! I could use Blubeam like anyone else, but that assumes the drawings are to scale. I guess it would be a discussion about where the slab edge, column edge, and beam edges are.

@phamENG That's an exciting idea! Will be nice to see them rip each other apart.

 

[milkshakelake]

@Ron247 Thanks for the idea and the pictures! It could be fun to play around with an eraser. Interactive stuff.

@DrZoidberWoop Good idea. Nothing catches the eye as much as failures and ouchies.

@MotorCity Lol I'll definitely add the forum to the credits.

@ThomasH I agree, it's not a lot of time. I can't go into detail about anything, so I'm going more for fun over education but I'd still like to leave them with at least one useful piece of knowledge. That's why the eraser idea sounds good, it's just fun. There will be one other presentation about Local Law 179 or something, also 5-10 minutes. I'm definitely going to do something more catchy than that. Will use some curse words in the title or something.

@adn26 Haha first I'd have to go to a presentation about those things. Not my specialty. But thanks for the idea!

 

[dold]

A firm I used to work for had a great marketing department - very active on social media. They would do a weekly...umm...'quick thoughts' (that's not what it's called but I'm not trying to out myself) instagram post with essentially a bluebeam sketch and a paragraph discussing certain aspects of topics that come up often in the preliminary stages of design. For example: "why is it important to avoid bearing floor joists/trusses on exterior walls in buildings that require fire rated exterior walls? To avoid using expensive fire hangers!". They'd have one of our project managers come up with this topic and make a sketch. Another example might be "why it is important to stack walls in multistory wood structures". Or "how might a site specific (seismic) geotech investigation save money on your project?". Or "Thinking about replacing RTUs on your existing building? Think about locating them in the same location as existing units to potentially avoid expensive retrofits!", etc etc etc.

A lot of these topics give the GCs some ammo (for better or worse) to influence the design team's decisions. "Let's get MEP guys to relocate these RTUs". MEP tends to have bigger ears when listening to owners/architechts/GCs than when reading emails from us structural peons.

Not sure if something like that would be too short or specific for your case, but 5-10 minutes isn't much time at all.

 

[dhengr]

Milkshakelake & Ron247:
RE; Ron’s eraser idea..., I use a piece of foam rubber, like for a cushion or arm chair seat filling material, 4x4" or 4x6" by 24" long. It is fairly firm, returns to shape, but is very flexible in bending, torsion, tension, compression, etc. With a sharpie pen, I draw a 1" sq. grid on each face, and continuing around from face to face. Now, when you bend it as a beam, you can actually get some feeling for the magnitude of the strain from the outer fibers to the N.A. Same with torsion, you get some feel for the magnitude of the parallelograming of each of the 1" sqs. We had a program of helping science teachers in late grade school and early high school, and presenting what various engineering disciplines do in their professional and design work.

Take similar sized pieces, as much as possible, of various common building materials to gain an appreciation of their weights in construction. Balsa wood vs. southern yellow pine or douglas fir, and there are a few heavier woods too, if you can get your hands on them. Steel pl., alum. pl., copper pl., and others. Chunks of concrete, lt. wt. conc., conc. blk. shell, foam insulation, 2x4 stud, plywd., etc. Mark the weight per cubic inch and cubic foot on them, but see how amazed they are when they pick up the piece of steel and piece of alum. pl. Bring a few pieces of different rolled shapes, a ft. long.

 

[KootK]

I'd seek to do something that might enhance your reputation and visibility a bit in your market. And a good candidate for that, I feel, would be some educational issue of regionally specific salience. Of course, it's tough for me to say what such an issue might be without knowing your market better. Spitballing, three possibilities that say "New York" to me would be:

1) The nuances of a two flat slabs per week construction schedule and;

2) Things to consider in the design of temporary works in a market full of very large, very old buildings.

3) How ridiculous it is that recent supreme court decisions have forced NY to accept P.Eng applications from Canadians. Nothing good can come of that.

 

[rowingengineer]

Generally failure discussions/ photos and picking on the relevant group is how I role.

 

[milkshakelake]

Everyone, thanks so much for all the suggestions. I made quick Powerpoints of a bunch of them and tested them on people. I've been mulling it over for a week and decided to go with KootK's idea of something hyper local and showing knowledge in my area, specifically how to deal with the building department here and save money. Mostly on what not to skimp on (certain documents and drawings, bracing, etc).

@KootK: Regarding the supreme court decision, I couldn't find anything on Google about that. Do you have a link? That's pretty interesting, and sounds insane on the surface.