Weblog Final Documentation- Individual Reflection by Michael Wang

I learned a lot from this semester and I would say that MECHENG 250 had a lot to do with that. First of all, I have never helped designed anything and then machined it. I was prepared for a difficult manufacturing process as I have little experience in the area and could see myself making parts that did not fit the specified tolerances. However, I was caught by surprise how many times we had to redesign or even come up with completely new solutions. Overall, I improve my skills in SolidWorks (CAD Program) through repetition and also got better at machining with the mill, lathe, drill press, and band saw. In addition to new skills I acquired, I also gained insight into how the creative/design process works and acquired a general knowledge of mechanical components (ie. Bearing, pulleys, gears). I think that this class has prepared me well for the next Design and Manufacturing course, MECHENG 350.

I really enjoyed working with my group. I think that we had pretty good teamwork and were very efficient. In the beginning we were bouncing ideas off each other and figuring out what would work and what wouldn’t work. I think that this was the key to our success. We collaborated and added all our strengths together in order to figure out the best solution. Furthermore, we all shared the workload of the project equally. Some of us did more machining, while others designed and performed calculations. As always, arranging meetings with our busy schedules was tough, but when we worked together we got our work completed even if it took us late into the night.

Similar to our teamwork, our time management was also pretty good. We made all of the deadlines for our project and did well on the assignments. This was in part due to the fact that we never had to cram the night before a project was due and rush through it. We followed our schedule and were able to foresee any big time investment early. As with all of the other groups, the end of the term and the competition snuck up on us. At the end we had to make some sacrifices in our machine and had we saved more time/resources could have still improved our machine more.

This semester has shown that this course has a lot of potential. Firstly, I understand that this is the first time this new format is being tried out, but this class was made a lot more difficult because of the lateness everything was revealed to us. On the other hand, I think the content from lecture was useful, but that it could be condensed into just a couple lectures. This would allow for more time to begin designing the machines. I also didn’t think that the lab sections on CAD were all that useful. I would have rather completed the CAD assignment on my own during class and have the GSI there for questions. I also think the project/competition could be improved. Having the thin (0.02” clearance) in the slot limited the designs very much. Having a wider slot would allow teams to be more creative. If the slot were made to be wider than one machine, then teams couldn’t just park their cars and just play defense. This would help to make the competition more exciting as there would be more action. Another solution is to just have two of the original slots in one arena instead of making a bigger slot. Also, making the slot shorter and not so tall would allow more strategies such as conveyer belts (F.A.I.L.) and slot loaders (Stiga) to work better as well introduce new concepts such as a shooter or vacuum designs.

I could have improved my performance in the course by increasing our team's interaction with our GSI and Professor. We could have run our ideas by Professor Hart and Jean to see what improvements we could make to our machine. The day before the competition, Professor Hart did offer some ideas about how to get the squash ball, but by then it was too late to try to change our machine.