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.
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