Reflective Journal Connor ClarkeWeek OneI started working for a company called EMCON, a Structural Engineering Consultancy company employed as a draftsman for an engineer named Eddy Masuga. The first Week of working for Eddy mainly consisted of understanding Structural Drawings how they work and whats important to draw to convey the proper message to the workers on site. Eddy and I went through some older jobs hes done in the past and showed me different elements which make up structural drafting. This was similar to what I was doing in (CEA204 and CEA207) with Don, but on projects which have been constructed around Brisbane. I learnt a lot about the importance of line styles and weights which was taught to an extent in CEA103 but not specifically for structural drafting. Week Two The second week of working with Eddy Masuga and EMCON found me actually starting to prepare the drawings. I was charged with the first steps of preparing architectural drawings and making them into drawing outlines which a structural engineer could use to mark up the elements required. These would then be used by Eddy to mark out the Columns, Beams, Footings ect that Id drawing using AutoCAD. Using what Id learned in CEA103 and CEA204 and CEA207 I was able to produce a basic set of structural plans with Steel Schedules and general Notes which I was able to created using General Notes pages from previous jobs and BCC website. Week ThreeOn the third week of working for EMCON, Eddy received the soil report for the site. He sent me a copy of the report to read and extracted the important information which I then added to the drawings on the General Notes Page and the Foundation Plan. The soil report was similar to one I saw at the hands on day in our Geoscience class CEA201. With the report finished Eddy had to make sure the foundations hed chosen were applicable. In most cases his assumptions correct/efficient. There were a couple of changes where in curtain areas of the site the Ground Baring Pressure was less than expected and so the Footing Details for those areas had to be changed. I made the changed he specified and sent the updated drawings to him.

Week FourThere Eddy had finished with the Piers and reduced slab which needed to be placed Brisbane City Council pipes which ran through the site. The design of piers running either side of pipes is to alleviate pressure bearing down from the building around the pipe instead of on top. The design of the piers wasnt able to be finished without the Soil report. Once the soil report was received the week before Eddy finished the piers and sent them to me to add to the drawings and make details. The importance of types of ground soils and the GBP they have was taught in Geoscience CEA201. Once Id finished these I sent them back to him for final checks before he sent them to the certifier. Later on that week Eddy received some problems from the certifier which had to be changed before he could allow them to pass on to construction. These included a footing change which into a pad footing, and some of the piers were closer than the Australian Standard allowed. Week FiveWith the problems Eddy needed to design a new counter lever footing system in addition to changing the piers. Eddy did tell me the plans, if theyd gone through a BCC certifier would have probably been allowed because the closeness of the piers was due to the wall being designed on the construction boundary, which is why he put the piers closer in the first place. However since the Client went through a private certifier they had to adhere to the Australian Standards or they could be held liable. Liability and standards were covered in CEA104 Workplace Practices. The New design was sent to me that week and I worked on the drawings until the beginning of the following week. Week SixOn the six week of working for EMCON I finished the drawings from the previous week and Eddy sent me the architectural drawings of a new project to start on. Finishing up the last drawings for the first project was a longer process than Id first thought it would be. There were a lot of little cleaning up things on the drawings which needed to be fixed. Making sure the Drawings were named and ordered correctly (I changed the names to begin with numbers so when they were downloaded the files would always be in order of the drawing numbers) and the Annotative texts were giving me some difficulties with sizing correctly so I had to go back and use normal texts edited to different scales. This process was a long one and resulted in multiple iterations of drawings before they were ready to be sent to the client as final construction drawings. Whilst doing this also I was starting a new project at the first stages. Learning how to handle multiple projects at once was difficult in a sense at first but I quickly learnt how to manage my time and finished the first project and got the preliminary plans and details done in one week, what previously took me two and a half.

Final CommentsThough Ive not finished working for EMCON I believe in the almost two months Ive worked here so far Ive learnt a lot about how real engineering businesses are run. Engineering consulting and drafting, though can be difficult, came down to a process of working in elements and, as Eddy would tell me, there arent many elements to Structural Engineering when working in unit blocks which were his main business) working from the bottom up there are; Piers, foundations, walls, columns, beams, bracing and roofing. With the occasional addition of extra elements. My favourite element to work on I found were the Stairs. This was because instead of being told what to drawing by eddy I had to look at the architectural drawings myself and figure out what they wanted and draw it. This, though it wasnt design work, did feel like I was working on the build itself not just the drawing. This experience has left me with invaluable knowledge and I can really see the importance of the compulsory work experience section of the course.