Final Reflection on Course

In the past semester ME250 has taught me many valuable lessons about the design process, team project work and manufacturing processes. My favorite part of the course was my work on designing the machine in CAD and with my teammates. I had a lot of experience with CAD before coming to UM, but I had no experience with solid works as my high school concentrated on Auto Cad and its applications. I enjoyed learning new software and its various features. At first it was very frustrating for me because I was very used to the Auto Cad format, but I eventually became used to Solid Works. Mainly it was frustrating because this literacy came with very little help from the teaching staff. I attended all CAD sections but I thought that it was very hard to understand the GSI and how he was trying to teach the software at such a fast pace. Little explanation was given in section and it was even hard to ask questions, because everyone was very confused as the GSI flew through the material. I had to spend countless hours learning the software for myself with the tutorials that rarely answered my questions. I think that if there was one thing that needs to be improved upon in this course it would be the teaching of cad. We generally wasted a lot of section time while the GSI had to check all the teams’ assignments when this time could have been used for teaching CAD and the manufacturing processes.
I did enjoy almost all other aspects of the course though. It was a rewarding experience to design and build our own machine for the competition. We learned that it was impossible to design something that wouldn’t need corrections later, because of flaws or needed modifications to the initial design. Many of the subjects in class were very useful to our design process. Learning about gears linkages and various other mechanical components was key to our concepts and eventually our final design. I do think that it was kind of unproductive to not let us form into our groups earlier in the semester. We wasted a lot of time coming up with ideas that we knew would never work or be used in the teams design. I think that the course should be changed so that the groups are formed early so that groups are allowed more time to finalize their projects and begin manufacturing.
I learned a lot this semester about time management and at times it was hard to complete milestones and assignments due to the teams varying schedules, but I believe that we worked around it well so that everything was completed in a timely manner. I also feel that a lot of the homework early in the semester was busy work that I did not learn much from. Then at the end of the semester it seemed like we were very rushed to do all of the manufacturing in a short period of time. I think that this final part of the semester was far more important to my education and professional development, but it was neglected with the percentage of time the course allocated to it.
The final exam in this class also seemed like it fit the class material very well and I believe that was how it was designed to be. The only problem with the exam was that though it could have tested my knowledge of the course material very well, it did not because of the lack of time given for completion. Most of the students in the class described the exam as pretty much a writing contest that really did not test their knowledge.
On the whole I was very happy with my experience in ME250, because it was a fun and interesting class. It taught me a lot about the design and manufacturing processes, but there were various things about the class that could have been improved upon. I tried to list as many as I could above. A large amount of work was required outside of the classroom but I felt that this was the most valuable. Overall, I believe that I did very well in the class and my group did very well in the competition. We would have most likely made it to the finals if one of our plastic motors hadn’t failed in the semis. Again it was a very enjoyable class and I made some good friends in the process.