Individual Reflections: Danny Fuchs

ME 250 is one of the classes I have most enjoyed so far at the University. The fundamentals and processes that this course taught were new and exciting to me; specifically concerning the design and manufacturing processes. I discovered that designing is a procedure that does not just take place at one meeting. It’s a process that’s ongoing throughout the entire project and can undergo a multitude of reversals and alterations as problems arise or new ideas are formulated in order to adapt to the increasing competition or the surrounding environment (i.e. the arena). In addition, each individual decision must be looked at through different perspectives in order to ensure all possible scenarios are considered. Also, during the initial design process, no idea should be immediately disregarded. These ideas could form the basis of an idea that will lead to a successful design with the addition of minor, or in some cases, drastic changes.

Another procedure that was crucial to ME 250 was the manufacturing process. Before this semester I had little to no experience with just about every machine in the 250 shop beside the band saw. Now I am confident that I can operate the mill, lathe and drill press (in addition to the band saw), in the correct fashion. I also now understand the format of a Tap & Drill Chart. Overall, I learned that the manufacturing process will take longer than you originally thought and you should plan for mistakes being made. Despite how many hours were spent in the ME 250 shops, I still enjoyed the time while working on the project.

Teamwork was definitely the most prevalent element in this class. It was incorporated into every decision and needed to be utilized in order to complete almost every task. When working with the team, it was important to listen to everybody’s contributions. This way you could create and combine ideas and then analyze them with the intention of receiving constructive criticism on each idea. Sharing our ideas really facilitated the process of determining what our final design should model. This class reinforced the fact that team projects are meant to be completed by the entire team not just a couple members from the team. We found it hard to make vital decisions when only half of the team members were present. This slowed down our progression and caused us to fall behind our projected timeline regarding certain deadlines.

The whole “Milestone” system was a great way to teach the importance of time management. Although the “Milestones” were established by the faculty, our team was able to recognize that the deadlines did not only serve as times to assign grades, but more importantly they were setup to guarantee that our project would be completed on time. The chart that we made right before the start of the manufacturing process helped to keep us on track and encourage us to achieve the final product.

I thought the course as a whole was run efficiently and was very enjoyable. However, I thought the introduction to the purpose of the course and the main assignment (the slotbot) were initially vague. I was never really sure what the parameters of the slotbot were during the first couple of weeks, but as the course progressed everything became clearly defined.

Overall, I am satisfied with my completion of this class. My performance could have been improved if I was more of an advocate for learning how to use all of the machines. In the beginning we had one person learn how to use each machine. In retrospect this was not a good idea as there were times when the one member who knew how to use the machine was not available and the other three members were forced to take on an unfamiliar task. This only slowed things down. In addition, I could have done more research pertaining to different ways to execute certain functions in our slotbot and ways to manufacture and assemble our slotbot.

Individual reflections: Chris Kelley

Overall, I believe that ME 250 was a great experience, and although it was a very tough and time consuming class, the knowledge that I learned from this class was very vast, and will be useful for both the rest of my college career and my job career. As a mechanical engineer, this class was our first design and manufacturing class as a mechanical engineer, so it forced us to think in ways that most of us had never been required to. This class had no textbook, so it required us to engage our brain in ways that we rarely do. The course required us to problem solve, and use prior knowledge from engineering, physics and calculus courses in order to solve difficult engineering problems. Personally, this course helped me to decide that mechanical engineering is the track that I want to continue to pursue. 

I truly enjoyed working in groups for this project, and working towards a goal that, individually, none of us could have accomplished. I was quite satisfied with my team, and using each other to bounce ideas, and building a complex slotbot machine in the machine shop. Although all of us knew how to use all of the machines, each of us became especially experienced in one or two machines so that we could accomplish better time management and efficiency in the project.

The designing of the slotbots in teams was quite enjoyable, although it was quite stressful when other classes had to be neglected, because ME 250 was so time consuming. I believe that with better time management in the future courses, namely ME 350, 395, 450 and 495, though, most of us would not need to neglect other courses however. The class, in itself though, was also quite a challenge to manage, and I believe that this class also taught time management better than any class in the LS&A department could. Despite the fact that we were putting in some 40 hour weeks, it seemed like we were scraping by just to meet the deadlines. All of us in our group, underestimated how long building a slotbot machine would actually take, and that made this class especially difficult. 

In addition to the course teaching me to work well in groups and time management, job skills that will translate to virtually any career, the course also allowed me to become proficient in CAD, become a more experienced machinist, and learn all about gears, pulleys, bearings, etc. The course had a vast amount of information that all us had to intake, and this made the examination in this class the most difficult one I had taken this year. I believe that I am fairly experienced now, though, in this wide array of topics that ME 250 has taught me, and hopefully all of this hard work in this course will make ME 350 and 450 that much easier because I do not have to take the time to learn the basics that ME 250 has done so well in teaching. 

As stated above, I believe that overall this course was very good in teaching the student about basic mechanical engineering. The only thing that I believe should be changed in this course is the grading. The course never had any sort of syllabus that informed us about how this course would be graded, what it would be curved to or anything of the sort, and it has made me very frustrated to not know how my performance in this class would translate into a grade. Also, I do not think that the grading for the homework assignment was always fair, and I think that it would be a good idea that at the beginning of the homework assignments to explain to the whole class what the professors are looking for to distinguish an A from a B student. 

I am relatively satisfied with how I performed in this class, but I believe that time management is the key to this class. For future courses, such as ME 350 and 450, I will be certain that our group tries to make our deadlines much sooner, and at the very beginning of the year, I think that it would be a good idea for everyone to lay out their exam dates on a calendar, so our group can plan accordingly and work around these busier times. Besides time management, though, I believe that my team’s performance was very good, and I hope that my future design and manufacturing courses will be as informative and enjoyable as this one.

Completion of ME 250: final team blog

The last week of our ME 250 class went fairly smoothly, and we managed to finish up most of the final touches to our machine over the weekend. All of us were now very comfortable around the machines in the shop, so the minor adjustments that we had to make to some of the parts was not a big deal. Unfortunately for the Expendables, our team was faced with some problems when we met with our GSI for the final time on Wednesday. Our machine was manufactured very well, and all of our gears meshed very nicely, however, our team did not realize that the controller was on mixed, so the left wheel was completely uncontrollable. This was unfortunate for us, but we figured that we could come in as the underdogs for the slotbot competition on Thursday and place fairly well. We successfully made it to the 2nd round, however, our machine did not move quite as well as we would have liked. Below I will explain how our machine works.

Our car is driven by the dual gearbox, and two planetary motors drives both the delrin jaw up and down, and the sliding door wall side to side. All of these components meshed very well in the final design of the car without slipping which we were very pleased to see. Getting the gears to mesh properly was quite the challenge though, and our team ended up spending over a dozen hours just trying to make the gears match up properly. Nonetheless, we completed this task, but the dual gearbox was still not powerful enough to make it over the white ramp at even the highest torque output which was very frustrating.

If our design had managed to go over the white ramp, our aluminum flippers on both sides of the machine would have trapped the squash/ping pong balls, and driven over to our bin with easy. Unlike other teams, our car had no problems turning, so literally all we needed was a stronger motor and we would have managed to score many points. After depositing the center balls into the bin, our machine would also have the option to capture the side balls with the delrin jaw. We would simply reel in the squash/ping pong balls with it into the bin. After our team scored adequate points, and our team was winning, we planned to use the deployment door and drop erasers into the opponent's slot to make it more difficult for them to score.

Despite the fact that we were not able to make it over the white ramp, we believe that our machine was still a success, because it was still a fully operable machine that all of us are very proud of, and it taught us a vast array of knowledge that we will be able to use in the future.

Weekly Update Post 5

This past week was pretty successful. We finished the entire bot, for the most part. A few more minor tweaks and we have a competition-ready bot. Of course, we ran into a few problems. One of our gears did not come in on time. This was the gear that will attach to the Planetary motor that moves the sliding door, via a rack and pinion system. Additionally, we had some small errors due to gears not meshing properly. However, with efficient planning, we can solve all these small problems. The most efficient way to solve the gear alignment is to constrain the axles. Now, the only main objective left to do is solder the flimsy parts of the motor back on.

Looking back over the week, this was a very accomplished week. It really makes me proud.

Weekly Update Post 4

Last week was very hectic, but our team completed the MCM, although we were not able to put our motors completely into place, because we still need to attach our sliding door module before attaching the motors into place. Our team got quite a bit of work done last week, and because the MCM is most of our machine, we are probably around halfway done manufacturing our machine. Over this next week, our team will have to finish ordering some minor components, and completely finish the manufacturing of our machine. All of us have gotten very good at using the mill, lathe and other machines in the shop, so this week should be smoother than last week. Besides manufacturing, our team must also think about how we are going to ensure that the gears mesh without slipping, but aside from this, we expect everything to go very smoothly.

Weekly Update Post 3

The team was able to successfully manufacture our three parts for MS7 despite the unforeseen hitch of the shop closing early. We choose to manufacture a 90 degree stock connector using the mill and band-saw, a side wall using the laser cutter, and the front axle using the lathe. The CAD had to be revised as we placed the sliding door's motor too low and it could have possibly hit the bottom of the car. With the CAD now finalized and we can continue the process of manufacturing our MCM so it will be completed by November 24. Although this deadline is close, the manufacturing process will only get faster as the team has gained more experience from working in the shop over the past week. Overall, the team is working well together and we are making steady progress on our project.

Weekly Update Post 2

Our team has nearly finalized our CAD and engineering drawings and are ready to start machining the parts of our machine. 14 out of 17 of our engineering drawings have been signed off, although our team may need to get several of the parts resigned because new holes are being added to attach our gears through a shaft with bearings. Nonetheless, our team will start using the laser cutter on Monday and hopefully finish machining 3 or 4 parts. Over this next week, our team hopes to not only complete MS7, but finish manufacturing most of the parts of our machine.