This ME250 class was like nothing I’d experienced before. Coming in to the class, I had never used any CAD software or set foot in a machine shop. Needless to say, I learned many new skills in this class, all of which will help me throughout the rest of my engineering career. The experiences I had while familiarizing myself with these fundamentals of engineering resulted in a very positive experience overall.
The first learning curve I encountered was sharp: having never used any program remotely similar to Solidworks, I was very lost during the first few lab sections. I found myself having difficulty translating the ideas in my head into geometry and constraints on the computer. However, after taking some extra time to fiddle with the program, I quickly discovered just how intuitive Solidworks really is. I can recall a specific instance, in fact, when everything clicked. From there, it was just a matter of figuring out the depth of the program. Of course my future engineering applications will not all use Solidworks, but in a field that is becoming more dependent on computers by the day, even this small introduction to CAD is helpful. For my next design project, I think I will better utilize the CAD program to test my design before I start manufacturing. My use of it this year was mostly restricted to creating drawings for the shop, but I have learned that it is better to use the computer to model than to have to build, redesign, and build again.
Machining was something I also hadn’t done, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect. It turns out that I enjoyed manufacturing more than CAD modeling, but it also offered many, many more headaches. I have always liked to work with my hands, especially with wood, but this class exposed me to a whole new level of machining. Precision, tolerances, tools, tool and feed speed… I learned that in the machine shop, you have to account for all of these factors and more in order to get the piece you want. I also learned that if multiple parties were designing and manufacturing, ideas had to be laid out completely explicitly in drawings, or they would certainly be interpreted incorrectly. If there are limits on materials or time (which there always are), this creates a serious issue. In the future, I need to remember to devote more time than is necessary to the machining of parts. It was frustrating to be making a part on a tight time limit, something which never turns out well.
Although I have worked in teams before, this class presented a special challenge. The combination of all the stress, the crazy travelling schedule our group had this fall, and only having three team members made this a uniquely difficult class. Luckily, all members of our team were involved and dedicated to success. This created an environment where we consciously let our strengths compliments each other’s, and strived to hit all goals efficiently. Being explicit when communicating ideas was a struggle at the beginning, but we learned and adapted as the class went on. This class has convinced me that on future projects, I should designate stronger team roles and more rigid schedules at the beginning of the process, so that there is limited confusion in the end.
I do have a few suggestions for next year’s class. My primary issue is that although the staff were clear on the goals of the class, they were not always clear to the students about what exactly was expected, what was an acceptable manner of achieving our goals, and what we could expect from them as the facilitators of the class. The several rule changes throughout, a solid model that did not reflect the true dimensions of the arena, and subjective differences between the lecturers and GSI’s all made for a very confusing design process. These issues did not create an insurmountable goal for the teams, as all of these problems can be easily solved, but a little more organization would have been nice, especially because that is what is expected from the students. I suggest perhaps simplifying the game for next year, so that it is not necessary to put so many constraints on the rules. Otherwise, the class was run in a fun and interesting manner, and was a GREAT experience overall.
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