Final Reflection

During this semester, I learnt about the safety standards that we are expected to meet in manufacturing labs in general. In terms of design, I grew familiar with the CAD-program Solid-Works and its different features which proved essential in the manufacturing stages. It was very useful in terms of also demonstrating the scale of each part relative to other components of system (i.e. assembly). Solid-Works proved to be useful when using the water-jet and the laser-cutter as we simply converted the files into a drawing and saved it as a different extension. I also learnt the standards required for engineering drawings. In terms of manufacturing, I learnt about basic manufacturing techniques like milling, lathe, waterjets, laser-cutter, drilling, bending, press-fitting and others. I learnt about the functions of basic components like bearings, shafts, gears, fasteners and pulley systems.

Team-work was the key to making the design/manufacturing work. The project was designed such that even if a single person had all the know-how regarding the project he simply would not have had the time or the success or a team that employed the work of three people. It was essential that we bounced ideas off each other and improved on them given the time-constraint. Eventually, the final idea would a combination of three different initial designs but with none of the flaws. Given the scale and time-constraints of the class it was vital that the work was evenly distributed in order for progress to be made. It was important to realize that everyone had different strengths for example someone was better at drilling than the next person so he should look-after the drilling procedures however this is not implying that the others should depend upon him solely. It was important to make sure that the team stayed positive and that it did not fall out which taught me how to introduce or decline ideas with subtlety and have more patience whilst explaining them.

Time-management alongside team-work was pivotal. It was essential that deadlines were met and that we had a schedule that showed us our milestones for each week or day depending on the intricacy required by the component or module. Furthermore, time-constraints were placed on when the laboratory was open and when certain types of machinery were made available to us. All these factors had to be considered in order for the design of a successful project.

The course was enjoyable but straining at the same time. I picked up so many little things alongside the major manufacturing tricks from this class especially since it was an open-ended design project. The class was planned out carefully so that everything we needed to design/manufacture was covered in lecture. It would however be more beneficial if assignments were returned on time and so that we could see what the question was really looking for. It would also be convenient if there was a core-location that showed where due-dates were shown rather than scattering them across Ctools or Google spreadsheets. The GSIs were great and were always available to answer questions and help out. Overall, though this may have been a tougher than usual ME250 class but I would definitely prefer this one as it would be more beneficial in the long-run.

There were a few ways in which I could have improved my performance in this course. I could have dedicated more time had it not been for the other courses. The design of the project worked but since we did not focus on the small details due to other limitations, it was slightly flawed. For example, we did not analyze the springs we were provided with sooner. We could have used a lighter material for building the arm like the acrylic which would have spun faster and would reduce the torque input from the motor. We needed a better method of fastening the wheels to the motor so the cart would function more smoothly. Also, we could have added more motors to the cart so that it would generate more torque so it could meet its functional requirement of being obstruction to the opponent’s vehicle.

Shikhar Mohan