Becky's Reflection

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.