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.