This project taught me a lot about machining and manufacturing. Coming in with no machining experience, I am now confident using all of the machines in the shop. I am able to use the lathe to make grooves in rods, or to decrease the radius of any part of a rod. I can use the mill to find edges, ream, and drill holes in precise positions. I can also use the drill press to drill miscellaneous holes, the saw to cut metal or wood, and use the many tools in the shop to critique any machining imprecisions.
I learned a lot of things about teamwork in this class also. By having to work with four people’s schedules, I learned you are more crunched for time than it seems. When you know you have a week for something, for example, it is more like one, maybe two days, because everyone has other things going on. It also became obvious that planning ahead for things works only if you plan extra time. With assignments it took longer than expected, but with machining it even took more. We ran into MANY more problems than we anticipated when we planned, so running out of time ended up being an important factor for us. I also learned things about myself and how I work with teams. I learned sometimes I get stubborn for no reason about my ideas. However, I also learned that when brainstorming, unless ideas are being thrown out in the mix, I tend to be stuck on one idea and can’t break away. Maybe a better way of brainstorming could have gotten ideas out faster, at least from my perspective.
I also learned about Mechanical Engineering in general: simpler is usually better. Occam’s Razor really should have been more engrained in my mind. As a group, I believe we came up with a unique, and possibly very effective strategy, but it came at a cost. We had to make three large pieces, while most teams had to make one, two at most. With the limited time in the machine shop, the limited time this class offers, and the lack of previous machining knowledge in our group, we couldn’t execute the strategy in the time we were provided. Most of the problems we ended up with were because of not having time to test the machines working together and fixing problems.
This course could be improved by having more time to make the machines. While I went to the lectures, most of them went into much more detail than we would possibly need to make the machines, which made a lot of the first part of the semester seem useless. While we were slowly designing and going through the design process, we were losing the time we really needed to make the machine. Also, maybe that material is important because it is knowledge necessary for later classes, but many of the assignments seemed like a waste if the focus of the class was supposed to be on the machine. If it IS necessary, it almost feels like there are too many focal points for this class then.
I could have improved my performance in this class by asking more questions. When I got into some of the individual assignments, I would remember I didn’t understand it in class, but didn’t ask. Also, I missed two lectures, both in the same week, making me not understand a very important section of the class. This affected my performance on the assignment, the exam, and in team work.
No comments:
Post a Comment