While this class was definitely my most stressful class of the semester, i noticed immediately after it ended how much i missed and enjoyed it. I learned a great deal in the course. i enjoyed having hands on project and having the opportunity to design and build a fully functioning machine. in the class i lerned a lot about how important the design process is, especially when we have so many components and modules working together. we have to carefully exam each component carefully and assemble them first in Solidworks. i feel this way because without a good plan then we are basically going to be wasting time in the machine shop. ME250 taught me a lot about some of the most important parts of design and manufacturing including teamwork, time management, and the mechanical components and machines used in a manufacturing based environment.
At the begining of the semester i was a bit intimidated by the amount of team work that this class required. i had never done anything similar to what we did in this class. ME250 was probably the most challenging and time-consuming class this semester. it required a lot of time, dedication and teamwork. but after all, when i finally made a machine by myself, i was so proud of myself and realized how much ive learned from every mistakes. having to manufacture everything was a great learning experience. it gave me a good understanding at how precise manufacturing can actually be. this class has given me much more respect for how difficult manufacturin can be. on the other side, it was very helpful to have the CAD lad and assignments. i feel much better knowing Solidworks because i know that will be integral part of being a mechanical engineer. Also being able to get the Solidworks on our personal computers was extremely benefical so we would not have to spend hours in the library doing CAD.
In terms of course improvement, i felt a lot of times were wasted on FRDPARRCS instead of more meaningful topics and actual manufacturing. it would have been nice to let us work in the lab and learn how to deal with the variety of mechanical components and stuff. for someone like me that have no design experience before, it would be tough to come up with an idea and tun it into reality. we learned about some things in lecture that we never even touched on during lab.Also, it would have been much better to assign the teams sooner in the semester so we could have more time to work on the machine design. another thing we should do in this class is filling an availability form at the begining of the semester and posted it online, so we can refer to each others' schedule to form teams, so that it wont have time conflict on group meetings. The homework assignments in the begining didnt seem to help with the project very much. it would have been nice to have assignments more toward the kind of stuff we should need to know for the project.
To improve my performances, i could have taken more time on some of the homeworks and lectures to fully understand all of them. maybe spend more time during the designing phase and measured everything carefully to make sure there were in interference on the final machine. if this would have been done, then there would have been no way that the machine would not fit or not functional work. overall, despite of the tough period of design and manufacturing, ME250 was one of the awesome class ive ever took. working with lemon lawyers was fun and educational. we all learned something from each other, and i learned that teamwork can be way more successful than individualized work when done properly.
~Yufan(claire) Liao
Jim's Reflection part 1 (as a comment-- because it would not let me copy and paste my thoughts from a Word doc onto my own new post!)
ReplyDeleteME250 was probably the most useful class I have taken at the University of Michigan thus far in my almost two and a half years. While it was also the most time consuming, the class far and away taught me the application of many of the engineering principles in a hands on environment. Looking back, I am very pleased with everything our team accomplished. Although we were never able to score a ball on any of our runs, among the three times we demonstrated our machines (in lab for the grade and twice during the competition) each part of our design worked the way it was supposed to at some point-- albeit not all at the same time.
Jim's Reflection Part 2
ReplyDeleteRegarding the material learned, I would say that the most influential was the work with the CAD. We learned the basics and worked well initially with the designing of our final product, but towards the end I began to realize the importance of being more concise and forward-thinking in our drawings rather than concurrently designing with the manufacturing process. What I mean is that the way most of our designing went was to generally take the large factors into consideration while leaving the hole sizes, threading, countersinks, counterbores to figure out later. If we had made these thoughts earlier on in our design process, some of the manufacturing problems of parts not fitting properly would have gone more smoothly. We also could have had a better manufactured final product rather than having to bandsaw off pieces that we later found to be unnecessary wastes of space where our machine could get snagged.
Jim's Reflection Part 3
ReplyDeleteAs for teamwork and time management, I think our team learned a lot that can help us perform much more efficiently in our junior and senior design projects. One of our main problems early on was that, as new machinists, we were not comfortable going on our own to manufacture parts. We would have two or more people working on a part that really only needed one person, simply to have extra people checking the procedure for faulty decisions. We finally figured out that we needed to work separately to better use our time, but that realization definitely could have come sooner. In addition to this realization, looking back I can say that I wish we had made something similar to a “chores list.” It would have been beneficial to come up with assignments for each person and split up the work. Consequently, I feel as if I had a hand in the manufacturing of over 75% of the final product because we were almost all always there when a part was being worked on. It would have been better if we had split up the tasks and delegated them to each member. One thing we would have had to do in order for this to work is ensure that the connection of the various modules was clearly thought out and the constraints for each part was considered so as to not impede the movement or space of another person’s module upon assembly. I would like to say that this probably would have saved us about half the time we spent individually in the machine shop. This is something I will definitely be taking with me to ME350 and ME450.
Jim's Reflection Part 4
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the course could have been improved in a number of ways. The number one contribution to much of our pain in this course came due to the constant changing of the rules. Now that slotbots has had two runs, there should be a great deal of information that can be considered for next semester’s class. This problem caused us to stall in the design process for a number of weeks when we could have been more effectively using that time. Additionally, I think the design process should be condensed. There should not be so many weeks to think about slotbots by oneself. The process should be laid out, then groups should be formed and start going through the process as a group. I think a lot of time was wasted doing the design process on our own in the beginning. I think this time could be better used explaining the technical problems we will see when we hit the machine shop. For example, there should be more emphasis on the common problems that teams will run into such as setting up the controls for the bot (making it turn, mixing the signal, etc). One last comment of suggestion for the future semesters is that I would take the blog out. It really did not contribute anything to our group. It was simply a side task that provided nothing extra for our group.