I was pretty excited to take this course at the beginning of the semester. As a guy who’s always been into cars and mechanics, a class called “design and manufacturing” sounded pretty good. I like learning about things like gears, drive systems, and how I can analyze these things and better understand them so that they can be improved. I was pretty new to the in-depth design process that Professor Hart presented to us, and it was definitely an eye-opener and will really be helpful in the future.
The realm of design was probably my least favorite part of this class. Not that it was unimportant or not useful, but the depth at which we were required to criticize our own designs became frustrating at times. But in retrospect it was a good thing, because it definitely helped me think more critically about designs and things that I come up with, which I’d say is a pretty useful skill in life. Engineering is all about critical thinking, and what I learned about the design process from this class definitely added to my skill.
Manufacturing was my favorite part of the class. I’ve always been a hands-on guy, and I love working with tools to make things and getting my hands dirty. Learning about all the different manufacturing processes in lecture was great, but being able to use some of them in the shop was even better. Before this class, I’d never used a lathe or laser cutter, and I really enjoyed gaining the skills needed to use these manufacturing tools. Being able to build our team project was my favorite aspect of the class.
Speaking of the team project, teamwork was especially important for this class. As a group of four, it’s sometimes difficult to arrange meetings and things that everyone can attend, so communication amongst us was always important. Utilizing everyone’s individual talents was good, too, because we could all learn from each other and gain personal skills from working together and figuring things out as a team. I didn’t really “learn” anything about teamwork, but I’d say that what I already knew about teamwork and my abilities to work on a team were strengthened because of this class.
As a team, time management was pretty important in getting our project completed. If only one or two of us could make it to the shop at a time, we would still get things done because it doesn’t take four people to make a single part, so we all had to work together and individually to get things done. The management of our time was especially important in meeting manufacturing and homework deadlines and, as always, procrastination was proven to be a bad idea.
I spent more time on this course than I did on any other class this semester. During the last few weeks of the course, it seemed that everyone was in the shop/lab a lot. Spending 5-6 hours a day on this project was just too much, but that’s exactly what we had to do. I believe we should have been given more time for manufacturing. The time constraint that irked me the most was the transition between MS7 and MS8. We had a 5-day week to manufacture three parts, and then the week before Thanksgiving (3 days), we had to complete an entire module and have all engineering completed for the rest of the project. A crazy deadline, and we all had other things going on that week and the next (exams). As it was the first time ME250 has had such an intense project, I can understand discrepancies and slight disorganization, so hopefully it will be improved for future semesters. The motor assignment was rather frustrating because a lot of the materials required to complete it were not available to us, and our ¼” shaft didn’t fit into the bushing, so we had to waste 45 minutes trying to sand it down so it would fit. Also, what was the point of having such a long exam that nobody could possibly finish? Having all the information for the course on Google docs was a great thing for the class, as it was easy to figure out what was going on when and where.
As a whole, I really enjoyed this course. It required a lot of time and dedication, but I learned a lot and in retrospect, it was my favorite class this semester simply because it was so hands-on compared to everything else. I felt much more accomplished because of the more “instant gratification” that the class provided, and the competition was a lot of fun.
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