This semester of Mechanical Engineering 250 was a great experience. I learned a great deal about the design and manufacturing field and gained valuable hands on experience actually applying what I learned in the classroom. I’ve done some woodworking in my high school career, but this was my first time working with metal and I feel like I gained a very solid knowledge base of the design process and steps of manufacturing. I learned the basics and fundamentals of the design process such as sketching, the fundamental principles (simplicity, self-help, etc), narrowing an idea vague to specific, and CAD modeling. I learned all about the different components and various parts of design and manufacturing such as screw specifications, gears, bearings, and materials. The best part though, was being able to actually put all of this knowledge to use while building the machine.
While the actual design and manufacturing was obviously a main component of the class, the experience of working with a team was also very important. Fortunately, my group all got along well with each other and we were able to complete all of the milestones and assignments to the best of our abilities. Everybody was able to add something to group to help move the team forward. However, I found that tensions can run high as the due dates are nearing and things aren’t working quite the way we expected. We experienced Murphy’s Law firsthand on several occasions such as the mill and lathe we signed up for both breaking the night before our most critical module was due.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, but there are several modifications that I think could be made to the course to improve it for the upcoming semesters. The first change that I think should be made is to clarify the grading of the course and the assignments. Many of the assignments were vague and did not clearly specify what exactly was going to be graded or what we were supposed to do. Another change that I think would benefit the class is to make the lectures more interactive with the students. There is a lot of information packed into the slides and I think some small in-class activities could go a long way to help students pay better attention as well as understand the material more clearly.
I’m satisfied with my overall performance in the course, but there is always room for improvement. I feel that if I would have done a better job of keeping up with what was taught in the lectures, I could’ve applied that knowledge more efficiently to our machine while we were still designing it. I made the mistake of waiting until right before the exam to re-read the lectures and really try to comprehend what was being taught. Another thing I should have done is to complete the milestones and manufacturing as early as possible. We ran into unexpected complications that we could’ve dealt with more efficiently and effectively if we had more time. Basically, I would have been better off if I didn’t procrastinate as much.
All in all, I really enjoyed this course. It was very time consuming, but it gave me a great fundamental understanding of the design and manufacturing involved in engineering. It was great being able to apply the lessons in lecture to the machine. I would have to say my favorite part was seeing how our design varied from the other teams’ machines and then facing off against them in the big competition at the end. This class has given me good reason to look forward to other design and manufacturing courses and experiences in the upcoming years.
-Scott Kleiman
No comments:
Post a Comment