Devin's Reflection

I came into this class as a Computer Science major looking for a tech elective spot to fill. When I heard about ME 250, a design-build-test type course, I got kind of excited. This was not something I really had not had opportunities to do in CS.

The design and manufacturing aspects of the course were something fairly new to me. Sure, I had designed things before and followed through with building them, but never had I been forced to put so much thought into the proper materials to use, how these materials would interact with each other, how several different components to one design could be used together. Further the process of talking out ideas during the planning stages was something I now recognize with a renewed importance. So often we’d find ourselves discussing one specific part; the materials to use, the best way to put them together, the best way to manufacture them. Talking through ideas like this really helped us to create the most effective design to meet the requirements we had.

Working in teams was not something I hadn’t dealt with before. I’ve had plenty of opportunities working in teams in the past and specifically in a classroom environment. My team this semester was no different. We all had our certain strengths that we brought to the table and I feel like we all did a pretty good job acknowledging these strengths, as well as the faults, and working together to get things done.

Time management is something that has always been a personal problem of mine, but I feel like the group setting is one place where I do step it up from individual assignments. Knowing that there are three other guys that depend on the work I say I’m going to get done, I want to do whatever I can not to let them down. I guess that plays into the teamwork aspect as well. Personally I know there were times when I wouldn’t be able to make a meeting so I would put in several hours ahead of time so that I could still make a positive impact on the progress of the team. I felt like the other team members worked similarly in this regard. We’re all busy as students, but we all put in some extra time individually at some point during the semester to make sure things would be progressing as planned. I think this was very important to us getting things done.

How I personally could have improved my performance in this course, I think the biggest thing for me was just the way I did my homework early on. Being a junior CS major, I really hadn’t had to do any physics and mechanical calculations in some time. I struggled and kind of just wrote it off as not as relevant for me. Thankfully, I had group members who were able to help in this regard, while I was able to help out with things I was better with like the design itself. I think had I taken a more genuine interest in some of the calculations early on I would have a better understanding of how they were used in our design – alongside the design I’d helped to create.

In terms of improving the course, I’m not sure what should be done. I think one simple thing would just be to keep all the early “mini-projects” more relevant to the course. For example, the motor testing experiment was great because it was right at a time when the groups needed to start considering how to implement their motors and get some hands on experience with them. The bike assignment on the other hand, while absolutely necessary for helping to introduce and recognize mechanical components seemed just a little out of place. It would seem more relevant if this type of assignment could be implemented using something more specific to what we were trying to create.

Also, the big surprise to me was just how much of a step up it seemed this semester was from semesters past. But that’s not a bad thing. Personally I came in just looking for a fun, interesting, hands on experience in engineering. That’s what I got, but I was also to take more from it. That’s something I’m not so sure I would’ve been able to do had this course not taken the step up it had. It’s not that it was more difficult, it’s just that it was much more challenging - specifically with time constraints towards the end of the semester. Knowing ahead of time that this course is going to be so time intensive I think is necessary for students to know when taking this class. Nevertheless, the thing is, if you raise the bar, people are going to work hard and strive to reach it. It doesn’t matter if they agree with why it was raised in the first place, they’re still going to do their best to get there. I think that best describes this class. No one expected it to be as much work as it was, but for the most part, everyone rose to the occasion and for that I think we all got much more out of it