Become an Agentic Structural Engineer

Built in the course: ETABS torsion iteration

• 1.5 hours → under 15 minutes
• 7 iterations
• ~40 failing beams → 0

Muhanned Othman, a structural engineer in Dubai, built this agent in the course. It runs the ACI 318-19 torsion stiffness-modifier iteration in ETABS until every beam passes, and its results match a benchmark he calculated by hand. Beams that still fail stay with him. Read the write-up.

How it works

You finish with a working agent that runs one real workflow from your own projects — from the project files it starts with to the deliverable it hands back. It does the repetitive part; you set the assumptions, make the engineering decisions, and validate every result. The target is 30% less time on that workflow, measured against the baseline you time yourself before week one.

1. Before we start

   Pick your workflow

   Choose one repetitive workflow from your own projects and time how long it takes you today. That's your baseline.

2. Week 1

   Design the workflow

   Map the steps, the decisions, and the points where a human has to approve. Then design your agent around them.

3. Week 2

   Understand the data

   Define the data structure your workflow runs on — what every step takes in and hands on — then fill it with project data pulled out of IFC models and PDFs.

4. Week 3

   Connect the tools

   Reach your calculation tools the three ways an agent can — an API it calls, a command it runs, an MCP server that describes itself — and add the checks that stop it from ever handing you an unverified answer.

5. Week 4

   Run the agent

   Learn how reusable instructions, references, and scripts guide an agent through a workflow, with checks and engineering review points. Watch a roof-optimization skill created and run from IFC to verified result and report. Then discover how another skill turns the verified design into drawings. Create and run one skill for your own workflow, verify its deliverable, and compare its run time with your baseline.

Saturdays don't work? Take it from the recordings. The sessions are demos, you watch rather than build; the building happens in that week's assignment on your own workflow, and the two private reviews keep you on track.

You leave with a working agent for one real workflow, and a measured number for how much time it saves you.