Justin Faber's Individual Reflection

I learned a lot of very valuable skills in me250 this semester that I know will help me in later in my mechanical engineering education and career. I learned how to use CAD programs to create solid models and detailed drawings of what I’m designing. I also learned how to go from just a drawing or a solid model to a physical part with the machines we were taught to use. I now know how to use a mill and a lathe to fabricate parts with great detail; both of which will be useful in the future. I learned that in design, you must not be afraid to come up with crazy ideas that you can later refine into something more tangible. Teamwork is a very valuable part of design and engineering, especially when you are working on a project that takes a whole semester. It’s nice to be able to divide the work so it doesn’t become overwhelming, and it’s also helpful to have a team because you can collaborate ideas and knowledge. If one or more team members don’t know how to do something, there’s a chance that another member does. It’s also a very good idea not to procrastinate. My team learned a lot about time management throughout the semester. At the beginning of the semester we would do assignments at the last minute, until we realized that it’s very hard to coordinate the schedules of four people to find times to work on things.

I understand this is the first time this course has been taken since it changed. Knowing this, there are definitely some areas that could be improved upon. It would be nice to know the rules of the game a lot earlier and have them clarified and set in stone right away. My first few designs were completely different than my later ones because I misunderstood how the game was played. Also, our designs as a team changed multiple times throughout the semester because we were unclear on some of the rules until close to the end of the term. Another thing that would be helpful would be to make the kit contents available sooner. We also had to change our designs based on finding out that we weren’t given certain materials. The only other way I can think of improving this course would be to not expect so much from the students early in the term. For example, many students hadn’t learned CAD yet and some of the CAD assignments were asking us to do much more than we were taught.

I personally could have done better in me250 by doing a few things. If I hadn’t put off assignments until the last minute early in the term, I could have finished them in a timely manner and done more of a quality job. Also, our machine may have turned out better had I put more effort into the design of our machine outside of class and team meetings. Overall, this was a great course and it was a lot of fun.