ME250 was one of my most challenging and time-consuming classes this semester even though I had three other 300+ level courses. It required a lot of time and dedication towards the project, especially near completion and the competition. I was pretty new to the in-depth design process that Professor Hart presented to us, and it was definitely an eye-opener and will really be helpful in the future. There are a lot of things I learned in ME250 such as efficient design and manufacturing as well as working as a team. I learned that we needed to start off creative with our designs and funnel down our ideas in the order of strategies, concepts, modules, and components.
Prior to my experience in ME250, I had very limited background with basic manufacturing processes. I feel I learned quite a bit about the design and manufacturing process during this class. One thing that I found challenging was trying to initially design our machine in CAD. Using SolidWorks and building our project step by step showed me how important it is to have a strong computer model in order to reference and be able to visualize the final product and make crucial changes. I learned how helpful CAD can be in a design aspect but also in a manufacturing sense because it makes creating part drawings so simple and efficient. In manufacturing the individual pieces that made up our final machine, I learned a great amount about the precision that needs to go into such processes. I also gained a good understanding of how to perform processes like milling, drilling etc.. I feel that in learning how to do all of these things in this class, I will be much better prepared for challenges I will face in ME350 and ME450.In lecture I learned more about the theory and mechanisms behind screws, bearings, and springs, among many other .The lectures and assignments helped to guide us through the whole process while teaching us various manufacturing skills. All of the lectures on ways of gaining mechanical advantage were very helpful overall knowledge and proved to be very useful while manufacturing parts as well as analyzing our design.
Working in teams was not something I hadn’t dealt with before. Even though by the end of November we had been trimmed down to just a team of three, with one person dropping out, I can say I learnt a lot about teamwork and channelizing our collective efforts towards achieving our goal (i.e. completing our machine). Utilizing everyone’s individual talents was good because we could all learn from each other and gain personal skills from working together. Time management was another big issue for me because no matter how much we planned ahead we always felt like there was not enough time to finish.
I felt the course could be improved by making the earlier part of the course have more assignments on what you actually want to build instead of making up random strategies. I also felt the course was a little disjointed from time to time with the assignments. The length of certain homework’s in the beginning should have also been scaled in accordance with the grade. I also felt that the exam was too long to complete in the given time and doing well became an issue of who could write faster and not who had mastered the material.
ME250 really built my engineering skills in general. I think that there is a certain mindset that an engineer needs to develop, and I feel ME250 really forced me to develop that necessary mindset. Although I still feel I could have put a bit more time into refining our final machine, the sight of seeing our machine performing in the expo was a gratifying sight. I am also extremely grateful for the effort that all the GSI’s and Professor Hart put forth to produce a more effective introductory design program. I think a new standard was set for ME250. I more over feel that all the things II have learnt have left me in good stead for the future.
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