Individual Reflection on ME250 - Brian Thompson

ME250 was a very challenging, but fulfilling class. As a mechanical engineering major myself, being able to design and manufacture a machine from scratch was a great learning experience for me. I have taken a design class similar to this but I have not experienced such an in depth project from start to finish. Working in a group of four can be at the very least, a challenge. Having to work around each other’s busy schedules was one of the hardest parts of the project. By working around each other’s weaknesses and using each other’s strengths, we were able to come together and produce a quality machine for the contest. Manufacturing in the shop, was one of the most useful aspects of this class. At times the lectures seemed like a lot of information that was very abstract without a hand’s on approach. As we got into the shop it was much more useful to see what worked and what didn’t in our designs. Because the lab and shop time seemed so much more useful, I feel the emphasis should be placed higher in getting groups together earlier in the semester and getting them working in the shop as soon as possible. This is where I learned the most and I feel I can use this knowledge as a base to help my design for other projects in the future. As we neared the end of the semester, time was running short and tempers were running high. Even though some of our schedules were not the best in the final weeks of completing the project, I feel that the team worked well together and in the end, we all put in an equal and immense amount of work for the project. As the competition day arrived we had finally finished our machine and it felt great. I was happy with our success in the first round, and that is all I could have asked for. As for the second round, our design could not hold up to the competition, who pinned our front arm to the flipper even after we had reached it first yielding our machine useless. It was very frustrating watching the other team score as my controls were rendered useless. I feel that if I were to do a similar project, I would spend more time designing a machine to combat such weaknesses. One way to improve my own performance would be to work ahead on the project early in the semester when we had more time to focus on the class instead of having to do other extracurricular activities at the end of the semester. We ended up having to design some parts right up to the deadlines of the final machine, and this was very stressful on the team as a whole. In the end this has been one of my favorite classes of my college career. I hope to be able to use the knowledge I’ve gained, and build from it in the rest of my studies and hopefully into my career as a mechanical engineer.