Well finally this class has come to a close and overall I would say that I feel quite good about it. Throughout the course I feel I have gained a solid understanding of the design process from end to beginning, the main idea I took out of all of this is that you need to be incredibly thorough throughout the entire process and not just jump to the end and focus everything on the final product. The rough ideas you begin the process with really shape the final outcome of your whole design as much as it may not seem like it when you first start. It seemed in the beginning of the semester that all of the simplistic ideas we were asked to come up with were just busy work, but I can look back now and see that those ideas, however rough they were, became a solid basis for the rest of our more extravagant ideas to build off of, ultimately leaving us with a reasonably successful and somewhat well thought out design.
When it comes to manufacturing I’ve learned first and foremost just how much time you really need to commit to this process in order to get an end product that you are happy with and more importantly one that actually works as you intended. As a team we spent a lot of time in the shop trying to quickly and properly learn how to use the different machines and also a lot of time in the classroom trying to figure out just how exactly to constrain everything so that our machine could maybe run smoothly. I also really value having learned so much CAD, which I feel will be a reoccurring skill in my life. This tool is so incredibly useful throughout the design process and while I wish I had learned even more about it, thanks to this class I feel I have a strong enough basic understanding of CAD that I can continue to teach myself on my own time and apply this knowledge in other classes.
Throughout the rest of my college career and well after that I am sure teamwork will be a recurring thing in my life. I am glad to have been lucky enough to be a part of a team that worked very well together, but due to this it was hard to keep focused at times when we needed to stay on task and accomplish things in an allotted amount of time. Having no one on the team with any machining or CAD experience became an apparent issue as we progressed, I feel throughout the term different members strengthened different skills that we could put to use making us work more efficiently than if we all had minimal understanding of a broad range of skills. Monopolizing on these abilities we were able to accomplish more and complete our tasks on time. Even though we didn’t do as well as we had hoped I think we all gained a lot from this class and had an enjoyable time doing so.
One of the biggest issues with this class seemed to me to be how vague all of our different instructions were. It seemed at times that the class was rather unorganized making it difficult for the students to accomplish the different assignments as they were expected to because they were unsure of what was being asked of them. Last minute e-mails were inevitably being sent out in attempts to clear the air on specific topics and then we would have a few days to a few hours notice to attempt to figure out how to change things around to fit the expected results. I feel if the entire course (more specifically: rules of the game, milestones, shop times etc.) were planned out more concretely before the start of the term then there would be less confusion for all, students and teachers alike, to have to deal with.
As for my personal performance, I feel I could have spent more time outside of class thinking of better ways to improve our original design and planning out in more detail what exactly needed to be accomplished. Had I focused more on this class I feel I could have accomplished a lot more and I would have taken even more than I have out of the class. Overall I feel that this was a great learning experience and I enjoyed my time spent on this class.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Individual Reflection: Adam Olshove
From the very first assignment in this class, through all the homeworks, CAD assignments, and hours upon hours spent in the shop, my mindset was "This class is stupid." If anyone ever asked what I thought about the class, that is what I would tell them. It is only now that I am done with the class and I can look back on it that I realize just how much I've learned. I now regret having the mindset I had, because I feel I could have learned even more (and gotten a better grade) if I had taken the class with a more optimistic approach.
I think the most important thing I took from the class was all that I learned about mechanical design. All those lectures that I considered useless, well, I wish I had stayed awake during them. I remember a specific moment where I looked at a lecture slide that had something to do with constraining, and thinking "Seriously? This theoretical stuff is never going to apply to our machine." And I also remember the oh-crap moment when I realized an entire module of our machine was not going to work because it was improperly and inadequately constrained. This leads me to a very important thought I had the other day: If I could go back and design this project again, I could make it twice as effective twice as fast. That is how I know that I learned a lot in this class. And I can't even tell myself that the things I learned about mechanical design will never come up in my life because they already have: I had to build two cages out of carbonfiber and acrylic for my UROP project and had to consider so many of the things we covered in this class in their designs.
Another thing I am glad to take from this class is the experience I got in Solidworks. I have already had to use it outside of the classroom and again it was for my UROP project. CAD was one of the things that I never had a major complaint about in this class, but while I was working on the assignments I did think that they were a bit tedious and unnecessary. I take these thoughts back now, because I have come to realize what a powerful and useful tool CAD is, especially in mechanical engineering. I genuinely enjoy using Solidworks now, sometimes I even sit down and build solid models of random things just for fun.
As far as teamwork and time management go, I guess I learned a lot, but it wasn't something that occurred to me while I was learning it. One thing in particular that I can say I learned is that when it comes to machining it will ALWAYS take longer than you expect it to. More importantly, I learned that it is very useful to know exactly what the specific skills of each individual team member are in advance. While some things are meant to be worked on by more than one person, it is sometimes just more time efficient to split things up among a group. This is when it is vital to assign the correct things to the correct person.
To improve this course, the number one thing would be to make it less vague. Most of the vagueness in the class was probably as a result of it having such a new curriculum. But sometimes the vagueness seemed ridiculous. On every single assignment I or my group found ourselves saying "What is this even asking us to do?" and the resources we need to complete assignments were often absent or would be provided very shortly before a deadline. And there were too many emails saying "Oh by the way..." that described some tasks for us to do a day or two before a milestone was due. However, I feel that these problems will be mostly resolved next semester having seen how the class took its course this semester.
To improve my own performance in this course, I should have taken it more seriously. At the end I DID take it pretty seriously, but it was a little late. Before then I treated it more like engin 100, where I didn't learn anything. There was very much to be learned from this class and I wish I had realized that.
I think the most important thing I took from the class was all that I learned about mechanical design. All those lectures that I considered useless, well, I wish I had stayed awake during them. I remember a specific moment where I looked at a lecture slide that had something to do with constraining, and thinking "Seriously? This theoretical stuff is never going to apply to our machine." And I also remember the oh-crap moment when I realized an entire module of our machine was not going to work because it was improperly and inadequately constrained. This leads me to a very important thought I had the other day: If I could go back and design this project again, I could make it twice as effective twice as fast. That is how I know that I learned a lot in this class. And I can't even tell myself that the things I learned about mechanical design will never come up in my life because they already have: I had to build two cages out of carbonfiber and acrylic for my UROP project and had to consider so many of the things we covered in this class in their designs.
Another thing I am glad to take from this class is the experience I got in Solidworks. I have already had to use it outside of the classroom and again it was for my UROP project. CAD was one of the things that I never had a major complaint about in this class, but while I was working on the assignments I did think that they were a bit tedious and unnecessary. I take these thoughts back now, because I have come to realize what a powerful and useful tool CAD is, especially in mechanical engineering. I genuinely enjoy using Solidworks now, sometimes I even sit down and build solid models of random things just for fun.
As far as teamwork and time management go, I guess I learned a lot, but it wasn't something that occurred to me while I was learning it. One thing in particular that I can say I learned is that when it comes to machining it will ALWAYS take longer than you expect it to. More importantly, I learned that it is very useful to know exactly what the specific skills of each individual team member are in advance. While some things are meant to be worked on by more than one person, it is sometimes just more time efficient to split things up among a group. This is when it is vital to assign the correct things to the correct person.
To improve this course, the number one thing would be to make it less vague. Most of the vagueness in the class was probably as a result of it having such a new curriculum. But sometimes the vagueness seemed ridiculous. On every single assignment I or my group found ourselves saying "What is this even asking us to do?" and the resources we need to complete assignments were often absent or would be provided very shortly before a deadline. And there were too many emails saying "Oh by the way..." that described some tasks for us to do a day or two before a milestone was due. However, I feel that these problems will be mostly resolved next semester having seen how the class took its course this semester.
To improve my own performance in this course, I should have taken it more seriously. At the end I DID take it pretty seriously, but it was a little late. Before then I treated it more like engin 100, where I didn't learn anything. There was very much to be learned from this class and I wish I had realized that.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Individual Reflection: Devin Min
I wanted to do Mechanical Engineering due to its design aspect of the major. And I came into ME250, motivated to learn as much as I can about design. What I did not expect were the workload and its accuracy to almost every little detail associated with the project. I always thought design itself was described in two words: innovation and creativity. This class helped me realize design was a lot more than that. I learned the essentials of precision, accuracy, and labor. Always being lazy, I always thought creativity would be the only thing I would contribute to a design; I would have never guessed the labor work would be my responsibility. Manufacturing became a huge chunk of the design and it never struck to me that most of the times, the precision, accuracy, and labor had to be my task. Therefore, this class was a humbling experience for me. And as a future mechanical engineer, I now know the importance of creating something out of scratch and the concept to do so.
First of all, I want to apologize to my teammates for flaking out early in meetings and shop times. After finishing our machine, I realized how important this class is with teamwork. In order for us as a team to succeed, we all had to be in the same page. The idea we constructed had to have a unanimous agreement and each suggestion had to be consulted before taking on action. This class gave me a new perspective of how a successful team should be. One of the aspects I learned was compatibility. Although our team did not do as well as we expected, we went along great and had joyous memories with laughter and jokes. Because of this, the team was able to rely on and understand each other more.
Working with more than just one person, time management had to be one of the main reasons why this project was so difficult. Having four people, the team had conflicting schedules when one or more person would disagree with the meeting times. I believe that is why I did not complete my sessions sometimes at the manufacturing shops. I learned that even scheduling certain duties or events a week ahead of time helps a lot. I also came to the belief that if you are busier, the less likely you are to procrastinate. Having a full hand became beneficial to me this semester and I will try to follow this habit throughout my college years.
Overall, ME250 was an interesting experience for me. Of course, the class itself was tough and hard to manage, but after finishing the course, I understand certain subjects the professor was trying to push upon. The only complaint I had about the class is the fact that a lot of the assignments were given last minute – especially the resources. And at a panic mode, the team was very disgruntled about the fact that we had limited time to finish all the assignments. Also, most of the instructions given to us were very vague and difficult to understand. This class would have been more entertaining if the directions were clearer. However, there was also fault with the team. If we have taken into account for our flaws, then we could have constrained machine better.
First of all, I want to apologize to my teammates for flaking out early in meetings and shop times. After finishing our machine, I realized how important this class is with teamwork. In order for us as a team to succeed, we all had to be in the same page. The idea we constructed had to have a unanimous agreement and each suggestion had to be consulted before taking on action. This class gave me a new perspective of how a successful team should be. One of the aspects I learned was compatibility. Although our team did not do as well as we expected, we went along great and had joyous memories with laughter and jokes. Because of this, the team was able to rely on and understand each other more.
Working with more than just one person, time management had to be one of the main reasons why this project was so difficult. Having four people, the team had conflicting schedules when one or more person would disagree with the meeting times. I believe that is why I did not complete my sessions sometimes at the manufacturing shops. I learned that even scheduling certain duties or events a week ahead of time helps a lot. I also came to the belief that if you are busier, the less likely you are to procrastinate. Having a full hand became beneficial to me this semester and I will try to follow this habit throughout my college years.
Overall, ME250 was an interesting experience for me. Of course, the class itself was tough and hard to manage, but after finishing the course, I understand certain subjects the professor was trying to push upon. The only complaint I had about the class is the fact that a lot of the assignments were given last minute – especially the resources. And at a panic mode, the team was very disgruntled about the fact that we had limited time to finish all the assignments. Also, most of the instructions given to us were very vague and difficult to understand. This class would have been more entertaining if the directions were clearer. However, there was also fault with the team. If we have taken into account for our flaws, then we could have constrained machine better.
Individual Reflection: Ben
Prior to taking ME 250, I had very minimal experience with the design and manufacturing process. I learned how the process methodically breaks down the way engineers make decisions through strategies, concepts, modules etc. and how fundamental principles contribute to the design of products. In terms of manufacturing, I also had very minimal experience with power tools. This class provided me with hands on experience as well as a starting point for practical skills that are essential in mechanical engineering. Another essential skill that I gained from this class was the use of CAD. I learned how CAD is used to effectively communicate design ideas from one engineer to another. I found it interesting how precisely CAD is able to translate our ideas into the real product through the machinery provided. It showed how powerful computers are in the design and manufacturing process.
Our team dynamics this semester had its ups and downs when it came to staying organized and being on task. We got to know each other very well and the semester progressed so working together was not a problem. However, because we got along so well, there was an increase in distractions and loss of focus at times. Our team could have been more efficient and effective if we were more organized and focused more often. Nonetheless, we generally worked well together as a team. Our team did not have anyone who had prior experience in manufacturing and CAD, which stood as learning obstacles for much of the semester causing us to feel at a disadvantage. I learned how advantageous it is to have a diversified team that can split work up by corresponding strengths to be most effective.
Overall, ME 250 was a very helpful class in getting hands on experience with design and manufacturing in which we are able to try things on our own and learn from our own mistakes. However, I felt that I could have used more time learning how to manufacture by spending more time in the shop which could have perhaps been possible if the manufacturing portion of the project was started earlier in the semester. Next, the rules of the game should be set immediately so that teams do not have to keep changing their proposed design causing them to lose time. In terms of deadlines and schedules for the class, they should be made in even more advance so that teams get a chance to fit ME 250 into their schedules. It’s much easier to find times to go into the shop and work on our projects when we know in advance when times are available.
I could have improved my performance in this class by spending more time outside of class planning what needed to be done especially since I had minimal experience in the shop. I think if more time was spent at the beginning of the semester coming up with a creative and effective design, I would not have been reluctantly forced to simply choose the best design from what I had but rather had a design that I knew would work.
Final Post
At long last our machine is finished and the competition is over. We lost in the first round, but quite frankly we are happy our machine worked at all. It didn't come out quite how we first imagined it, but we all agree that our original design is something to be laughed at.
Are you laughing? I'm laughing.
After we learned what materials we would be given to build our machine, we started to make a new solid model. This is the final design that we based our working machine off of:
Our final machine doesn't have walls, it has four wheels, motors everywhere, the arm is much longer and shaped differently as it is made out of PVC, and most of the dimensions ended up being far different from how they are represented in the preliminary design. We ended up using three motors: one to drive, one to move the joint up and down, and one to rotate the arm. The machine drives very well - slowly and with a lot of power, like we wanted it to. The arm also rotates pretty well but because the center of rotation is so far from the arm's center of mass, we couldn't get as much force out of it as we wanted to. The motor controlling the movement of the joint did not work, however. This was due to poor constraint of the rack and pinion coupling and small rotations of the joint that produced large unwanted friction between the joint and the bars it was supposed to slide on. Fortunately, the movement of the joint was relatively unimportant and we were able to compete. Here we are at the competition, our machine on the right:
It almost looks like we have a chance here.
Well that's all folks. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
ALSO:
Total Cost: $94.26
Final Bill of Materials
Are you laughing? I'm laughing.
After we learned what materials we would be given to build our machine, we started to make a new solid model. This is the final design that we based our working machine off of:
Our final machine doesn't have walls, it has four wheels, motors everywhere, the arm is much longer and shaped differently as it is made out of PVC, and most of the dimensions ended up being far different from how they are represented in the preliminary design. We ended up using three motors: one to drive, one to move the joint up and down, and one to rotate the arm. The machine drives very well - slowly and with a lot of power, like we wanted it to. The arm also rotates pretty well but because the center of rotation is so far from the arm's center of mass, we couldn't get as much force out of it as we wanted to. The motor controlling the movement of the joint did not work, however. This was due to poor constraint of the rack and pinion coupling and small rotations of the joint that produced large unwanted friction between the joint and the bars it was supposed to slide on. Fortunately, the movement of the joint was relatively unimportant and we were able to compete. Here we are at the competition, our machine on the right:
It almost looks like we have a chance here.
Well that's all folks. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
ALSO:
Total Cost: $94.26
Final Bill of Materials
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Intro Video
Good luck to all the other teams!
But really let's be honest... we hope your machine doesn't work.
So really, good luck to us!
-Team Applesauce
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Week of November 30
This week we spent a lot of time in the shop finalizing our machine. We used the laser cutter to make our joint and cut some PVC pipe to make the arm. We assembled our second planetary gear box and began putting together the entire machine. By Friday we had completed the entire machine and almost finished assembling everything together.
While assembling all of our parts together we discovered some major design problems with the overall machine. For example the joint does not sit level on the rods connected to the body so when the motor is run the joint twists and the gear slips off the rack and we can not move the joint up and down as we had planned.
The gear connected to the second planetary gear box and the gear connected to the arm axle are not perfectly aligned because the axles connecting the gears are not fully constrained. When the motor is run the gears become misaligned and the arm axle does not rotate. The motor also can not supply enough torque to lift the weight of the arm.
Hopefully after some final tweaks our machine will be able to compete and perform successfully as we had originally planned!
Here are a few pictures of our final machine:
While assembling all of our parts together we discovered some major design problems with the overall machine. For example the joint does not sit level on the rods connected to the body so when the motor is run the joint twists and the gear slips off the rack and we can not move the joint up and down as we had planned.
The gear connected to the second planetary gear box and the gear connected to the arm axle are not perfectly aligned because the axles connecting the gears are not fully constrained. When the motor is run the gears become misaligned and the arm axle does not rotate. The motor also can not supply enough torque to lift the weight of the arm.
Hopefully after some final tweaks our machine will be able to compete and perform successfully as we had originally planned!
Here are a few pictures of our final machine:
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Updated Schedule
Looking back at the schedule we created a few weeks ago, we appear to be right on track! With our MCM completed last Wednesday, we have begun manufacturing all the remaining parts of the machine this week and plan to have them completed by this Friday. We are unfortunately still waiting on some additional 1/4" Aluminum rod to arrive in the mail, hopefully we will have time to manufacture the parts we need out of that material by Friday.
Here is our schedule all updated to this week:
Click here to view our newly updated schedule!
Finally here is more specific list of things we plan to accomplish this week:
To do list!
Stay appley!
Here is our schedule all updated to this week:
Click here to view our newly updated schedule!
Finally here is more specific list of things we plan to accomplish this week:
To do list!
Stay appley!
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