Coming into the ME250 class, I expected the class to be particularly challenging for me, because the Engineering 100 class I took previous semester was particularly challenging for me, and it also focused around an opened ended project involving a team. After going though the course my expectations turned out to be true, however the two courses were not as similar as I have expected them to be.
The ME 250 course seemed to be much more specific to me than the Engineering 100 I have taken during my freshman year, which I believe is good, as sometimes I tend to get lost in a very open- ended situation. I found the fact that the class is split into 10 Milestones very convenient, as it allowed me and my teammates to gauge our time and effort appropriately. The smaller details we have learned, for instance the FRDPARRC diagrams for our concepts and modules, as well as the Pugh charts also helped us save a lot of time during the design process. These tools, although they seem very common sense, had saved us a lot of time during the design process, a time when it is very easy to get lost in the amount of ideas.
The things we learned from the mechanical elements lectures helped us realize our design. Even though we had slight ideas about what kind of components our machines needed to be made of before these “elements” lectures, these lectures helped us finalize many of the grey areas about our machine. I liked the general timing for these lectures, as if they were later, these grey areas could have turned into large problems by the end of the course, which in combination with the manufacturing problems we had while assembling our machine would create a very unpleasant experience. The homework assignments and the labs helped me realize how and where we could possibly use such components as the springs, bushings, bearings and gears.
I have also learned that manufacturing is a much longer and harder job than it seems to be. Although one of my teammates and I have familiarized myself with how to use the mill, laser, and the drill press quite efficiently, we still asked a lot of questions to Bob Coury/ John Mears whenever it came to other machines in the shop. At the start of the manufacturing period we spent a day manufacturing one small part of our project (for instance an L-piece), paying close attention to how the surface is finished, and spending more time running around after Bob Coury or John in the machine shop. Eventually we started falling a bit behind schedule, and took up more and more hours in the shop. As we got more experience with the tools and started focusing more on the big picture than on the small details, our project started catching back up with the schedule. I believe, although the ME 250 gave us a good introduction on the tools in the machine shop, it will still take a lot of time for us to learn how to manufacture parts by ourselves.
We have also expected, and experienced, that the biggest problems in the project would come up at the very end, just as it is being put together. Although this did cause a period of initial depression in all of the team members, we were taught somewhat of a systematic approach on how to address the problems with our machine. The GSIs gave us tips on how to eliminate some of the problems we were having with the sweeping arm moving without completely remaking our machine, and just changing some small parts. We adopted this approach, and during consecutive assembly problems (the lack of torque/traction on our driving wheels, the slipping occurring in the planetary gearbox during operation) that we had it was much less painful for us to go though processes to develop solutions to our problems.
Although many things that we learned in the course about design and manufacturing might seem common sense and obvious to a person looking at the course form a third person perspective, I really believe it was the first hand experience that would make you to appreciate the things learned in the course. Some of the things in the lectures, like the hooks law, the cantilever beam, and Ashby’s method I was familiar with previously, while some of the things, like the capstan effect, the engineering drawings and tolerances were new things to me. However, during this class the most important thing that I have learned is how to combine our knowledge about all of those and many other details into a “do-it-yourself” project was.
Teamwork was another aspect that was not very easy for me. I am a fairly poor English speaker, so I have a hard time expressing my ideas to others, who I realized would not always be willing to listen to me trying to express them for long periods of time. During this class, I have talked to several other people in other teams, and they told me they had similar problems in communication with their teammates. Another important aspect about teamwork, which I have observed (and seemed to dislike a bit), is that it happens much slower than individual work. Every person (including myself) had a different schedule and took a certain time to understand what was going on, and expressed a larger affinity towards their own ideas rather to the ideas of someone else on the team. This was especially evident in the beginning of the course, and became less and less so by the end of the course, when we started getting used to each other. I tailored myself to the team a bit, however I still believe there is much more room for improvement.
As for the course itself, I felt that it was a bit too end-heavy. The start of the course is very light, while the load gets progressively heavier though out the year. I understand that it takes a lot of time to get the students into the mood of the course, and to form the teams, however I do believe that the design/ and the early portion of the course can be truncated to 2-3 weeks, with much more time left for the design and manufacturing of the actual team project. I felt absolutely horrible about having to miss a certain class two times in a row in order to complete the project, and while this is partially my fault, I believe the course can accommodate for these things not to happen again.
I also believe the shop training can be much improved by moving it up closer to the manufacturing part of the course. Although 250 is not the only class working in there and the shop training has a potential to interfere with other manufacturing courses, I believe that there could be some time spared in the middle of the semester to teach us how to use the machines.
Finally, since I have experienced the course, I can realize that my performance in the course can be improved. I think that the first thing that I would like to change is my attitude when approaching “team project” courses. Since I already had a similar (to a degree) course previously I initially expected that the course would be rather painful for me. Initially I tired working very hard, looking after every little detail, however I became more and more focused on the big picture by the end of the course, sometimes neglecting small details, and having my teammates remind me about where to go and what to do (sometimes from lack of attention). I believe if I adopted a more uniform working habit (although I doubt that would be an easy thing to do), my performance would be improved. Another thing that I might want to improve upon is the passive approach I took during some of the decision making concerning the project (for instance picking the team strategy). Although it is an important idea to preserve the team, to prevent arguments from destroying it, it is sometimes very critical to stand up to your teammate’s ideas. I think if I (as well as some of my other teammates) would have stepped up for a team strategy/concept different to the one that we proposed (that was a less complicated concept) instead of taking a passive approach backing out of an argument we might have had less of a hard time accomplishing our final machine then we did, and focus more on the fine details that make up our machine. Although back at the time it was a very hard tradeoff to predict, it would be very good for me to think ahead next time instead of taking the passive approach.
Overall, this class was a very good introduction for me to manufacturing, and design processes, as well as another practice of developing teamwork skills. I think the class could be improved a bit form what it is/was this semester, but the main discomfort probably came from my lack of experience in manufacturing, teamwork, projects, and open ended problem solving. This was the job of this class for me, to provide me with these experiences.
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