Individual Reflection- Jessica Todoroff

Design:

This class helped me a great deal with the design process. Before I would always skip from step 1 (the idea) all the way to the final step (the building) because I didn't think any of the other steps mattered. Now I really think about the steps in between. For example, I might think that my idea of a assembly line might be great but then instead of grabbing random material and building, I start to think if the material will be strong enough, where are the motors located? how much material am I going to need? The CAD process really emphasized these skills and was great in between step 1 and the final step. I feel now at the end of this class that I could work in a group and design another bot-and this one would be better since I will have the skills before starting the project.

Manufacturing:

I have never worked with machines made to cut through types of metal- I have only ever used wood type machines. Working in the shop I came to appreciate what I learned in the training sessions at the beginning of the semester especially when it came to accuracy and safety. The lecture slides on the three main devices we would be using: lathe, mill, bandsaw, clearly gave a detailed explanation on how one is to correctly use the device for the best results. What I liked most about this class was the manufacturing, being an EE major we don't always get to see what our end result looks like except through graphs. Seeing a finished product and seeing it work how it should really makes you feel accomplished.

Teamwork:

This class was all about the team. The problem that we started out with was time conflicts with one another. Work, practice and exams really put a damper on when we could meet as a whole or not, but when we did we always finished the meeting with a finished product or with good ideas for finishing work at home. All teams have slight areas of conflict but we resolved ours by the end and came out with a finished product. I really enjoyed working with my team at the end because we really came together and started working well with one another. Overall, I enjoyed my teams company, even though as Jackson said we did get off topic from time to time (especially when it took us 2 hours to shoot a 60 sec video!), we worked like a team a team, a team with contributions from every member.

Improving the course:

I really wish that we had been in the machine shop earlier. We had a very difficult time obtaining time slots to work on our bot especially when ME350 or 450 was doing their project too. I feel that if we had a extra week we would have had time to test our device on the arena WITH the squash balls that stopped our bot. I wish the lectures would have been a little shorter and more focused on certain areas-having a hour and 30 minute lecture and talking about 10-15 different things really leaves you trying to remember most of them because you are so focused on the last area the was talked about. And the last thing I can think about is the rule changes, usually we would have a finished CAD but then the rules changed and we had to go back and redo the CAD-this took away time from other parts of our project and left us confused as to what was a rule and what was not.

Improving my performance in the course:

I feel like my biggest weakness was not remembering basic physics140 material, and due to that I had a difficulty when it came to doing homework and lab materials. I also had a lot of difficulty remembering all of the lectures-there was so much material that for the exam I didn't quite know what to study. I know now that if I were to take this class again I would go over each lecture after lecture and make some general notes to help me remember what was important and what was not.

Individual Reflection - Vivek Thanabal

Design

The design process seemed too relaxed. There was never really a sense of urgency, and this resulted in designs that were a little vague. I feel that this was a problem for many of the groups. Being more driven in this stage would have helped to make the manufacturing process easier. I learned how essential both the design and the detail of the design can be.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is the area where I learned the most. Coming into the class, I had very limited experience building much of anything. On any prior projects that required building (such as Engineering 100), I gave myself responsibilities that had to do with other aspects of the project. However, with this project, there came a time where all we were doing was manufacturing. This forced me to learn how to use the machines as tools.

Before the class started, I did not even know what a mill or lathe was. Learning about these machines is essential to engineers, as designs are only strong if they can be fabricated well. Therefore as an engineer I must learn the limitations and capabilities of all of these machines in order to create better products. I feel like I did a good job of learning what the machines can and cannot do. However, I am still not confident in my abilities to use these machines masterfully. I look forward to taking the future classes where I can further build upon my skills in using these machines.

Though I was not the best at using the mill and the lathe in my group, I was able to make myself useful by learning the ins and outs of the laser cutter machine. Now, I can easily convert CAD drawings to the proper format and create high quality parts using the laser cutter.

Teamwork/Time Management

I feel as a team we did not jell as fast as we needed to. We did not take advantage of the machine shop early in the process and so we were scrambling at the end to build our machine. Luckily, we started to work well together by the end of the semester so that we could have a working machine. Part of the problem was the fact that we had an undisputed leader that we were lost without. This made us inefficient and slow at times. In the end, however, I learned a lot about managing time with engineering tasks, as there is seemingly always something that can go wrong.

Course Improvements

This course was very challenging and demanded a lot from students. In general, the work seemed to pick up near the end of the semester after being slow at the beginning. I feel that starting the project a week earlier would help teams work out kinks. There was no time for multiple iterations of the manufacturing process. If a portion of the machine did not function as theoretically intended, there were very few options other than some sort of quick fix. This is somewhat mitigated by asking for the most critical module first, but most teams had multiple difficult modules.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with the class was the lack of competitive balance between the teams. Some teams had members with extensive machining experience. Those teams with members on project teams had access to their resources with their respective teams. In general, those were the teams that performed the best. In order to counteract this, I think it would be beneficial if groups were assigned. In order to gauge how well we worked in teams, we could have team labs (like the motor lab or the bike lab) before we started to work on the project. This would help keep the teams even.

I knew practically nothing about machining before the course, and so I looked at this class as an opportunity to learn how to machine. However, this did not happen as well as I intended. The training sessions at the beginning of the semester did little to help me. In the in class fabrication labs and the project, there was always a heap of work to do, so my groups always felt pressured to get things done quickly. This meant that I did not get a chance to use the machines that much. This is because my lack of experience would mean wasted time when somebody else could do the same task faster. It would be helpful if each individual was taught how to use the machines and then tested on that before fabrication for the project began. This would have helped our group save time, and it would have allowed me to gain more skills in this specific arena.

Individual Performance Improvements

I could have improved in many ways in this course. I was not very driven in the beginning of the project, and so I didn’t really have a leadership role. I feel that I should have taken some sort of leadership role on at least one aspect of the project so that I could be more involved. In addition, I should have gone in for extra help with machining so that I could contribute more when it came time to start building our project.

Final Team Documentation

Our final machine stuck mostly to the design that we have been discussing on this blog. The design consisted of three main modules: a car, a wedge arm, and a scoring arm. Collars connected the arms to the car, and all motors and other electrical equipment were mounted on the collars and the car. As we progressed throughout the manufacturing process, we made slight changes, but never anything radical. We found that some parts of our machine were not designed with enough detail. For example, we designed the mounting plates for some of our motors mere hours before building them. In all though, we were able to stick with a basic design and build it.

The wedge arm module was the first one built. This module consisted of a wedge to open the flipper and an arm that would allow for the wedge to move up and down. This module went through some troubles during the competition. The arm was not able to move down well, and so we couldn't effectively open the flipper. This may have been a result of not testing the arm while attached to the entire machine.

The scoring arm module consisted of a portion of a 3.5" diameter PVC tube and an aluminum arm similar to the one used for wedge. This module functioned very well in the competition and did its job. It could not scoop squash balls, but we were not expecting it to have that ability. Of the three modules, this one was probably our greatest success.

The final module was the frame. The frame held all of the electrical components and consisted of aluminum square tubes, mounting plates, collars, and wheels for driving. The frame held the entire machine together and was crucial for success. The frame probably was the least detailed designed coming into the manufacturing process. So many different parts had to go into the frame that we did not even realize. Fitting all of them together required creative hole placement and other such tricks. Nevertheless, this module did its job.

Individual Reflection - Brent Cragin

Design

The class has taught me about the basic steps of the design process and how to go about them properly.  Starting at a high level and working your way down makes sure you cover all the design requirements of what you are trying to make.   The design process started early on in the semester, coming up with strategies on how we would like to play the slotbots game.  This was done individually along with a couple of the other processing involved in designing leading to multiple choices when we finally did get into our final groups for the project.  When we started talking about the end of the design process we began learning how to present our designs in an easily understandable and detailed way for manufacturing purposes.

Manufacturing

The course taught many of the proper ways of general manufacturing for the scope of the class and even covered some entities not needed for the completion of our slotbots.   These manufacturing concepts taught were very helpful with understanding how to go about actually making parts.  One of the things that I found surprising was that after learning the proper way to manufacture a part I would have to go back to my design and change things due to them not being manufacturing friendly.  I will say I probably enjoyed this part of the class the most.  Getting to machine parts and then putting them together in a way that completes a design that you made is pretty cool.

Teamwork

Teamwork was emphasized heavily in this course and was required for the completion of a working bot.  This is the norm throughout most of the classes I have taken in the College of Engineering here at UofM.  The reasoning behind this is quite simple; we will be working as part of a team for the majority of our professional lives.

How to improve the course

·         Game rules kept changing even after designs were picked and manufacturing began

·         Discrepancies between what the GSIs were telling students

·         Lectures seemed to be very repetitive at times, two lectures in a row would sometimes cover a lot of the same information

·         Lectures didn’t have enough “important” information to cover the entire class time and a lot of extra slides were included to cushion this

·         Lab times were rushed in contrast to the lectures and didn’t have enough time to go over everything planned for the day

·         Have teams decided earlier in the semester and have at least one small project the team has to work on in order to see how they work together.  If things don’t go so well they can change.

·         Coordination with other classes on when projects are due.  We kept running into issues with getting machines to use up until the final week when we were the only class using the machine shop, this was when our entire bot was built.

How I could have improved my performance

I feel I could have improved my performance if I would have managed my time better.  A lot of times I would find out something was due in a day or two and would try to fit it in to everything else going on in other classes.  This would also have helped when doing assignments that built off of other assignments since doing them together would have made more sense at times.

Individual Reflection - Jackson Matheson

Design: This course helped me to learn a good deal more about design. I learned better ways to go about solving a problem by breaking things down from broad ideas to individual aspects. Having milestones throughout the course where we took our ideas to more and more detailed and specific levels made learning this design process easy. And looking to the CAD part of the design process was great. I've always enjoyed that part of the design process and have taken drafting and CAD classes in the past. This class, however, was the first time I had done 3D CAD in such detail. This part of the class might have been the most difficult. Having to plan out every single dimension and hole was a challenge but was a great way to learn how to plan out everything ahead. Once my team and I had our CAD done our work in the machine shop was much more efficient.

Manufacturing: This class was the first time I have ever manufactured to this scale. On various projects in the past I have used bandsaws, drill presses, soldering irons, power tools, and other simple tools but only used them to a certain degree. The time spent in the machine shop for this course helped make me gain a better understanding of how to use those tools as well as how to use the mill, lathe, laser cutter, and water jet. At first I struggled using these machines and learning the names of all the tools associated with them but by the last week of the course the time spent in the machine shop felt a lot smoother. I knew what I needed for each of the machines I was using, I knew how to use the drill chart to figure out bits and taps, and I knew how to zero the machines for measurements and use them correctly for what I needed to do. Granted there are still plenty of things about each of the machines that I don't know how to do or struggle with but I feel like I have greatly improved since the start of the course.

Teamwork and Time Management: This course was a great course to promote teamwork skills and proper time management. My team and I had to work around various time commitments we had outside of class and use our time wisely. A lot of times we had major time conflicts but by organizing our time so that we could work in separate groups throughout the day helped us to get stuff done. Then, whenever we were able to all work together, we did our best to plan out what we had to do so we could work efficiently. We did our best to make sure that everyone had their own job to do and their own way to help move the project along and contribute. With that I really enjoyed working with this team and feel that, despite getting off track from time to time, we worked well together and were able to do a good job overall even if we made a few errors here and there.

Improving The Course: The one major thing about this course where I see a need for improvement is that we need to be let into the machine shop earlier. I don't know if we weren't given enough time in the shop or if it was partly because one of the other ME design courses was in there past their deadline but a lot of teams including ours had difficulty getting machining done on time because of this. Now while this is good practice for the real world for trying to plan for the unexpected, it made the course very difficult because often times we weren't able to get everything done to how we wanted it on time. This problem was most evident in the beginning when the machine shop was being shared for multiple classes. Also, having the rules being completely determined from the start would have helped to make planning a lot easier. The fact that things in the rules kept changing made it hard to keep up with what was going on and what we could and couldn't do.

Improving My Performance In The Course: I think my biggest weakness in the course was that I had a hard time remembering everything from lecture. There was so much material to remember along with all the design and planning we had to do. If I had reviewed the lecture slides more or even done a little online reading I may have been able to do better on the homeworks and the exam as well as possibly come up with ways that we could have bettered our machine. Other than that, having a day or two more in the machine shop or having more time to test on the arena (with the proper ball configuration) would have greatly helped us to do better on our project overall.

Bill of Materials and Trading

Here is a list of our Bill of Materials:(all from either Lab or Bob's WorkShop)

2 lbs of PVC block: $2.06

Steel used for our Wedge: $16.89

PVC Tube-3.5"diameter 5"tall: $1.50

Aluminum stock 1.5" by 3 feet: $8.21

Aluminum 1"x 1" stock kit: $4.71

Steel Axel-from Bob: $2.89

Total: $36.26

Here are our trades:

1. 1/4 inch diameter aluminum rod from team 21

Bearings

2. 12" Nylon rack and 3/8" diameter rod to Mark(GSI)

24" Al square tube stock 1"x1", 1/8"wall in return

3.28 D.P.,72 Teeth, 20° Pressure Angle, Acetal/No insert spur gear

Final Week of Slotbots

So this week was an interesting week for us. We almost had everything complete on Monday until a tap broke inside of one of our axles and made us have to get new materials to finish our bot. That setback caused us to lose the majority of our points on the MS for Monday.

Afterwards we just had to get our bot working correctly and since we already had the Monday MS we weren't as rushed. We spent time in the machine shop Monday and Tuesday to get things in working order. We realized at some point that one of our supplied gears was somewhat curved but there was nothing we could do at that point and just had to hope that everything worked ok with it.

Then on Tuesday we made our video and had a lot of fun with it. We didn't have great footage of our bot since my camera battery died while we were in the lab so we had to use a phone. But after a little effort we were able to get something that we really liked for our video.

Then Wednesday's seeding came around and we were one of many teams that was scoreless. It all came down to one mistake: we didn't account for the balls in front of our bot being squash balls. The balls stopped our bot dead in its place and we could not get far enough forward to flip the flipper and score. We had an idea how to solve this problem for Thursday's competition but we would have been 0.25" over the allowed dimensions. Thursdays competition again left us scoreless although we came very close to getting the flipper flipped and scoring. All in all it was a fun and productive week. Personal reflections coming soon!