Individual Reflection
What I Learned in ME250?
Design and Manufacturing
Coming into ME250, I knew very little on the topics of manufacturing and design except what I had learned in my previous engineering courses. With this, I was learning something new at almost every lecture. I believe the most important lectures were the design process, ideas and analysis, and design principles. These “big picture” ideas helped a great deal in our project and they could be applied in many aspects of life as well. Lectures 7-11 helped to lay a solid foundation in mechanical components that I can hopefully use in subsequent courses.
Teamwork
My experience in ME250 has taught as well as reinforced some notions I have about teams. I learned that you have to be able to utilize the skills that different members of your team have. If a team in not diverse in the skills that it possesses, then the team will struggle. One idea that I have had about teams involves the time a person commits to the course. One wants to find team members that will devote a fair amount of time to a course. This may mean steering away from people that have a heavy course load or additional activities.
Time Management
Procrastination is a terrible habit to have. Waiting until the last minute to manufacture a part or create a drawing will eventually lead to trouble. Following a schedule is very important. When different obstacles arise, a team can adapt if there is time. One of my favorite professors Jason Daida once stated the phrase “three-day horizon”. A person who has a three-day horizon looks ahead and is never left with trouble at the end.
How the course could be improved?
I enjoyed this course very much, but I do believe that there could be some improvements. To begin, I found the descriptions of some of the earlier milestones to be vague; specifically, the milestones that dealt with creating concepts and strategies. I did not completely understand the task of the first milestone, and I ended up formulating strategies instead of concepts. Because of this, I was one step ahead for the first few milestones. Secondly, I believe that we should have received our kits earlier. It was difficult to create feasible strategies without knowing what types of materials, electrical, and mechanical components we would be given. In the end, most of us had to scrap our initial ideas and start over with a new strategy. Sometimes this is how engineering is in the real world. I found the workload to be appropriate, and the shop hours were very convenient.
How could I have improved my performance in the course?
I performed fairly well in the course, but there is always room for improvement. Firstly, I could have spent more time preparing for the exam. I did not perform as well as I would have liked, and I believe that I may have looked past it a little after the percentage of weight given to it was changed from 20% to 12%. Specifically, I was not prepared for the different calculations in the second part of the exam. I was fairly prepared however for the big picture engineering question which was weighted fairly heavily. Secondly, I could have spent more time working on the project. With our design being fairly simple, our team felt that we would be able to finish all manufacturing with at least a week left at the end to test it. Different “obstacles” came up that extended our schedule, and we did not finish manufacturing with much time left to test. Specifically, the gear ratio that we used in our motor was not ideal. My calculation of arm speed across the slot as not correct, and this was evident in our first test. We ending up switching the motor from 400:1 to 25:1 with only a few days left until the Design Expo. We also utilized our second planetary motor, which we did not plan on in our initial designs.
Comments
I would have liked to see the GSIs and/or Professor create a slot-bot ;)
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