I came into my sophomore year debating whether or not to major in mechanical engineering or naval architecture and marine engineering. I was hoping ME 250 would help me decide which field of engineering I would like to pursue. Not long into the semester, I had made my decision and declared into naval architecture and marine engineering. Even though I found the class very interesting, I knew that mechanical engineering just was not for me. Although mechanical engineering was not my major, I feel like I learned a great deal about teamwork, time management and design and manufacturing. I will use a lot of what I have learned in this course and apply it to the future engineering classes I will be taking both mechanical and non mechanical classes.
Being in a group with 3 other people majority of the semester, I learned a lot about teamwork and time management. When it came to turning in team homework and reaching milestones in our design, I realized the value of individual work in a team. Sometimes we were each assigned separate parts of the assignments and others we would work on it together. Either way, I found myself working really hard on my part because I knew it would affect the grade of the entire team. I never wanted to let the team down by doing poor work and would offer to help others that did not know how to complete their portion. It was interesting to find out that each of our team members were strong in different areas. Some were good at doing the CAD, others the mathematical analyses and others the manufacturing and design aspects. No matter what each person was good at, we had to collaborate all our skills in the best manner possible to work together and make the most effective machine. Although sometimes it was difficult to coordinates all four of our busy schedules, we always found a way to all meet and work on the assignments. Even if it meant one person wasn’t at the meeting, we all would put in equal effort to the final product. I found it was really hard for me to make time to make it into the ME 250 shop to manufacture the parts towards the end of the semester because of the shop hours. I would have class early, rowing practice and not be able to make it back in time before the shop closed. Therefore the only way I could make parts was by skipping other classes and coming up to north on morning that’s I did not have practice or an 8am class which limits me to 2 days a week. In this aspect, I wish I could have been better at time management but I feel like I did the best I could have with my schedule.
Along with teamwork and time management I learned many things about manufacturing. Before ME 250, I had zero shop experience; now, I am fully capable of operating the mill, lathe, drill press and other machines in the shop. I have acquired the skills to be able to design a part, make a CAD drawing and then go and manufacture it on whatever machine it required. I also gained experience with a laser cutter and water-jet cutter. At the beginning of the semester, the CAD labs and homework were tough to do, but it became very beneficial to be proficient in using Solidworks. If there is one area I could have improved, it would have been in Solidworks. I was not the best at making solid models on CAD or assembling multiple parts. The knowledge I gained using CAD will be beneficial as I move forward in NAME. While manufacturing our machine, I learned a lot doing the hands-on work about couplings, bushings/bearings and the motors. I also learned how to assemble multiple components to make a moving mechanism. The material presented in the lectures was very helpful when in the ME shop. I could apply all of what I learned about gears, motors, screws, tapping, hole fits and other mechanical components. Towards the beginning of the year I found the information about the design process to be very eye-opening. I did not realize how much thought and analysis went into the preliminary design of ideas, components, module s and the final product. This concept can be applied to design in any types of engineering.
I think the best way to improve this course is to have more office hours and stress the importance of going to the lessons that Sam taught. I often would find myself working on the HW on Sunday night in the ME help room not having a single idea of how to do the hw. The homework was very difficult and they did not seem to really help at all with the material in the class. I felt like I was being graded on material from other courses and sometimes the answers to the questions were unsolvable. I think making the homework a little less difficult would be a good improvement for next semester. If not make them less difficult, make them pertain to the information in lecture more. If possible another suggestion for improvement would be extend shop hours or have the shop open on the weekend. As an athlete it was very difficult to find time to make it in the shop without skipping class or practice. If the shop could be open on the weekend, then I would be beneficial to everyone that experienced the same problem. My last suggestion would be to make the exam shorter. The material we were tested on for the exam was not too difficult but in the hour and a half span of time, I just could not finish the exam. I found myself halfway through the exam with 15 minutes left and rushed through what I could of the second half of the exam in the time remaining.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Wonjea's Reflection.
This ME 250 class was my first class that I ever took here at University of Michigan. Since I just transferred from another college, this semester was my first term at here. I was not sure which class I should choose, and my ME advisor told me to take this class. At first, I did not expect to make any real machine from this class. I just thought we will design a thing by program like cad, and make it simply using some foams and woods. However, the real course work was beyond my expectation.
I would not forget many nights that I could not sleep because of cad assignment. I had never used cad before, so it was so time consuming and hard to finish it on time. It seemed like computer language program. When I was stuck due to the lack of knowledge of the program, there was no way I could go furthur without someone's help. So, in the process of doing cad assignment, I spent many times with my classmates to figure out how to make things together. Anyway, cad lecture from GSI helped a lot. I really appreciate their help.
Another main problem was making the real machine. I had no experience about making something especially by mechanical tools, so "real" making process was so hard and embarrassing. We might have failed to finish making the robot on time because whenever we made something, unexpected error and problem occured. This unexpected things delayed us all the time. At the same time, however, making process was the best time for me. It was really fun to make things on my own and it made me go back to the lecture slides and learn the contents. I gain much motivation about materials covered in lecture to complete our machine. So, making machine gave me the basic reason to study.
Finally, I learnd the importance of teamwork and distribution. While in ME 250 class, we were assigned a lot of assignments. So, to finish all that assignments correctly and on time, we better devide the work to each teammate. By distributing all the work, we could have finished the assignments on time. At this time, I really want to say think you for all my teammates. Our teammates did really good job that I was not able to finish. If there were no help from them, I would not have finished the assignments. I am sure that everyone who passes this ME 250 class will know that the power of group work.
I hope I can apply what I experienced and learned from ME 250 class and group working to my future life. I am sure that will be very helpful especially whenever I am working with other people.
I would not forget many nights that I could not sleep because of cad assignment. I had never used cad before, so it was so time consuming and hard to finish it on time. It seemed like computer language program. When I was stuck due to the lack of knowledge of the program, there was no way I could go furthur without someone's help. So, in the process of doing cad assignment, I spent many times with my classmates to figure out how to make things together. Anyway, cad lecture from GSI helped a lot. I really appreciate their help.
Another main problem was making the real machine. I had no experience about making something especially by mechanical tools, so "real" making process was so hard and embarrassing. We might have failed to finish making the robot on time because whenever we made something, unexpected error and problem occured. This unexpected things delayed us all the time. At the same time, however, making process was the best time for me. It was really fun to make things on my own and it made me go back to the lecture slides and learn the contents. I gain much motivation about materials covered in lecture to complete our machine. So, making machine gave me the basic reason to study.
Finally, I learnd the importance of teamwork and distribution. While in ME 250 class, we were assigned a lot of assignments. So, to finish all that assignments correctly and on time, we better devide the work to each teammate. By distributing all the work, we could have finished the assignments on time. At this time, I really want to say think you for all my teammates. Our teammates did really good job that I was not able to finish. If there were no help from them, I would not have finished the assignments. I am sure that everyone who passes this ME 250 class will know that the power of group work.
I hope I can apply what I experienced and learned from ME 250 class and group working to my future life. I am sure that will be very helpful especially whenever I am working with other people.
Jae Yong's Reflection
Before coming to ME 250, I did not have any experience with manufacturing apart from making mini-cars and model airplanes. Therefore, when I first came to the lecture and heard that students are supposed to design a machine that will move the balls to the opposite side, I became totally blunt and wondered if I could successfully complete this course.
It seemed impossible at first. Howeve, as the professor, GSIs and machine shop directors taught each step of the designing process, I could slowly design my ultimate machine and manufacture it.
Learning CAD, different manufacturing processes such as lathe, mill, drilling, waterjet, laser cut and etc have been essential for our team to manufacutre our machine. Fortunately, our team members had different strengths and weaknesses so that each one of us could contribute to the achine efficiently. I have spent major time doing engineering analysis. I contributed in manufacturing process, mainly on lathe. I also did revisions of our manufacturing process, and analyzed possible failures and ways to fix them.
I could have been better at time management. Frankly speaking, much of our machine has been manufactured just few days before the deadline. I was ended up working 9AM from morning to 7PM on Friday just before the deadline, and the team got really nervous due to shortage of time. Luckily, we manufactured our machine successfully on time, but I hope this would not happen again in future.
Although I cannot say that I have mastered CAD and manufacturing processes, I have now become more or less acquainted with overall manufacturing. I am sure that this class helped me to prepare for other design and manufacturing classes that I will be taking in the near future.
I know that ME 250 has been changed a lot in this semester. When I heard from upperclassmen, ME 250 used to be an "easy A" class, so I did not worry about this class as much as other ME classes. However, this class has been most demanding (in terms of time consumption, workload, concept and etc) this semester for me. Especially, some of the homeworks were rather vague and complex at the same time, and I had some problem doing it, even with GSI's help.
If I were taking "only" ME 250 class, I would think that the time consumption and workload are
understandable. However, with two more ME classes, this class has been very challenging.
I know that world is full of obstacles and challenges. I believe this course has given me valuable hand-on experiences in design and manufacturing. Furthermore, I learned how to work in team better. We had good and bad times, as people cannot always be happy or sad. We tried to resolve any conflicts and we successfully manufactured the machine. I was really happy when our machine did so well in seeding competition, and was sad when we lost in the first round. Before manufacturing, I was rather skeptical about our machine, but as time passed by I became so into the machine, and was so proud of it at the end.
I would like to thank Professor John Hart for redesigning this course to be more helpful for students, GSIs (especially Sei-Jin) for endless helpful advises, and all our team members who are so talented and passionate about this course.
It seemed impossible at first. Howeve, as the professor, GSIs and machine shop directors taught each step of the designing process, I could slowly design my ultimate machine and manufacture it.
Learning CAD, different manufacturing processes such as lathe, mill, drilling, waterjet, laser cut and etc have been essential for our team to manufacutre our machine. Fortunately, our team members had different strengths and weaknesses so that each one of us could contribute to the achine efficiently. I have spent major time doing engineering analysis. I contributed in manufacturing process, mainly on lathe. I also did revisions of our manufacturing process, and analyzed possible failures and ways to fix them.
I could have been better at time management. Frankly speaking, much of our machine has been manufactured just few days before the deadline. I was ended up working 9AM from morning to 7PM on Friday just before the deadline, and the team got really nervous due to shortage of time. Luckily, we manufactured our machine successfully on time, but I hope this would not happen again in future.
Although I cannot say that I have mastered CAD and manufacturing processes, I have now become more or less acquainted with overall manufacturing. I am sure that this class helped me to prepare for other design and manufacturing classes that I will be taking in the near future.
I know that ME 250 has been changed a lot in this semester. When I heard from upperclassmen, ME 250 used to be an "easy A" class, so I did not worry about this class as much as other ME classes. However, this class has been most demanding (in terms of time consumption, workload, concept and etc) this semester for me. Especially, some of the homeworks were rather vague and complex at the same time, and I had some problem doing it, even with GSI's help.
If I were taking "only" ME 250 class, I would think that the time consumption and workload are
understandable. However, with two more ME classes, this class has been very challenging.
I know that world is full of obstacles and challenges. I believe this course has given me valuable hand-on experiences in design and manufacturing. Furthermore, I learned how to work in team better. We had good and bad times, as people cannot always be happy or sad. We tried to resolve any conflicts and we successfully manufactured the machine. I was really happy when our machine did so well in seeding competition, and was sad when we lost in the first round. Before manufacturing, I was rather skeptical about our machine, but as time passed by I became so into the machine, and was so proud of it at the end.
I would like to thank Professor John Hart for redesigning this course to be more helpful for students, GSIs (especially Sei-Jin) for endless helpful advises, and all our team members who are so talented and passionate about this course.
Yeon-Soo's Reflection
Being a broad field, mechanical engineering consists of many sub-fields such as thermal sciences, solid and fluid mechanics, nanotechnology, and so on. As a student of mechanical engineering, I was not very interested in the manufacturing aspect of the field, and I came into ME250 hoping that I would still find the class enjoyable.
It did not take long for me realize how much time and effort this class would require of me, and although I was looking forward to our final product, the journey of reaching that point was a hard one. Having nearly completed this journey, I can say that I did learn a great deal from this course. First of all, I had always wanted to learn CAD, and I now feel quite experienced with SolidWorks. The CAD assignments helped me a lot (after spending many hours on some of them) and I also volunteered to be the member of my team who would do most of the CAD portion of manufacturing. From lecture, I learned more about the theory and mechanisms behind screws, bearings, and springs, among many, than I ever imagined. Also, my experience in the machine shop was a positive one. A regret that I have is that I did not get to spend too much time with the lathe, but hopefully I’ll get to use it more in ME350 or in my own time outside of class. I used the mill a lot, and I gained experience with the water jet and the laser cutter; all of which I will see again in my subsequent design classes.
Team work and time management were two other very important skill sets that I improved in this class. I was lucky to have found a group of members who, despite our busy schedules, were able to meet and work towards each milestone and homework to completion. Each milestone and homework required a distribution of work among the team members, and the fact that how I do my part determines the grade of three other people in addition to me helped me to work even harder in this course. It was also interesting to see what strengths and weaknesses each of us had; some of us were more efficient workers in the machine shop than others, some were better at CAD than others, and some of us have taken more engineering classes than others, which helped us do calculations and analyses necessary for some of the milestones. I am not sure about my teammates, but I can speak for myself that my time management could have been better. There were times when I missed other classes to work on our machine, and I am sure that there were measures I could have taken to prevent that. I will learn from and try to improve upon all of these mistakes when I take more demanding manufacturing courses (i.e. ME350 and ME450).
I am aware that ME250 went through some major changes before this term, and a lot of work went into this course from both the students and the staff leading it. I felt that some of the homework assignments could be improved for future courses. In particular, assignments 2 and 3 were unnecessarily difficult and required us to make assumptions that I’m not sure I would have been able to make had I not gone to office hours. In the beginning of the course, there was also confusion about the difference between strategies, concepts, and modules that I feel can easily be avoided next time. I could have improved my performance in this course by reviewing lecture notes more often, by coming into early morning machine shop hours more often, and coming into more office hours for some of the CAD and homework assignments.
In retrospect, I definitely will take things from ME250 that will help me in my future. I gained an interest in control engineering from this class and I look forward to taking ME360 next term. Although we lost in the first round, I am proud of the final product we built and my other accomplishments from the class.
Yeon-Soo Chung
It did not take long for me realize how much time and effort this class would require of me, and although I was looking forward to our final product, the journey of reaching that point was a hard one. Having nearly completed this journey, I can say that I did learn a great deal from this course. First of all, I had always wanted to learn CAD, and I now feel quite experienced with SolidWorks. The CAD assignments helped me a lot (after spending many hours on some of them) and I also volunteered to be the member of my team who would do most of the CAD portion of manufacturing. From lecture, I learned more about the theory and mechanisms behind screws, bearings, and springs, among many, than I ever imagined. Also, my experience in the machine shop was a positive one. A regret that I have is that I did not get to spend too much time with the lathe, but hopefully I’ll get to use it more in ME350 or in my own time outside of class. I used the mill a lot, and I gained experience with the water jet and the laser cutter; all of which I will see again in my subsequent design classes.
Team work and time management were two other very important skill sets that I improved in this class. I was lucky to have found a group of members who, despite our busy schedules, were able to meet and work towards each milestone and homework to completion. Each milestone and homework required a distribution of work among the team members, and the fact that how I do my part determines the grade of three other people in addition to me helped me to work even harder in this course. It was also interesting to see what strengths and weaknesses each of us had; some of us were more efficient workers in the machine shop than others, some were better at CAD than others, and some of us have taken more engineering classes than others, which helped us do calculations and analyses necessary for some of the milestones. I am not sure about my teammates, but I can speak for myself that my time management could have been better. There were times when I missed other classes to work on our machine, and I am sure that there were measures I could have taken to prevent that. I will learn from and try to improve upon all of these mistakes when I take more demanding manufacturing courses (i.e. ME350 and ME450).
I am aware that ME250 went through some major changes before this term, and a lot of work went into this course from both the students and the staff leading it. I felt that some of the homework assignments could be improved for future courses. In particular, assignments 2 and 3 were unnecessarily difficult and required us to make assumptions that I’m not sure I would have been able to make had I not gone to office hours. In the beginning of the course, there was also confusion about the difference between strategies, concepts, and modules that I feel can easily be avoided next time. I could have improved my performance in this course by reviewing lecture notes more often, by coming into early morning machine shop hours more often, and coming into more office hours for some of the CAD and homework assignments.
In retrospect, I definitely will take things from ME250 that will help me in my future. I gained an interest in control engineering from this class and I look forward to taking ME360 next term. Although we lost in the first round, I am proud of the final product we built and my other accomplishments from the class.
Yeon-Soo Chung
Final Team Documentation
Photos of our final machine can be viewed below in our previous post. As our video explains, our cart has three main motor-powered parts: one planetary gear box elevates and lowers the upper arm that is always vertical via a rack and pinion mechanism. Another planetary gear box is used to rotate a winch with kevlar thread tied to it. The thread is also tied to the lower arm and the rotating shaft spins the arm up and down in a circular motion centered at the joint between the two arms (the arms are jointed by a brass hinge). The third motor is a double gear box (even though only of the sides is used) that spins the shaft and the wheels, thus transporting the machine forwards and backwards.
The arms were cut out from an aluminum plate via the waterjet, and the base for our cart was made from the cutting acrylic with the laser cutter. We used the mill to cut out the supports and to drill holes through them. We used the lathe to cut grooves in the shafts for the e-clips. We used the bandsaw and the drill press for various reasons.
Below are couple more final photos of our machine:
The arms were cut out from an aluminum plate via the waterjet, and the base for our cart was made from the cutting acrylic with the laser cutter. We used the mill to cut out the supports and to drill holes through them. We used the lathe to cut grooves in the shafts for the e-clips. We used the bandsaw and the drill press for various reasons.
Below are couple more final photos of our machine:
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Manufacturing Complete
With minor tweaking to do tomorrow morning, we have completed manufacturing our machine. The following are pictures and the video of our team and machine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)