Individual Reflection - Jon Gold

I learned so much about manufacturing. I did not have much/any experience in a machine shop, working with a lathe or mill, or taking a solid model and fabricating its parts. I am so glad to have had this experience, and I am so much more confident as I continue with Engineering. I always used to feel like many other kids had a leg up because they could go into a shop and build things, but now I can, too!

I took Dr. Daida's E100- Design in the Real World. After that course, I had a very solid basis for design, teamwork, and time management. Our team in that class designed a deployable emergency shelter for use in disaster-stricken areas, such as Haiti. I gained experience in AutoDesk Inventor, and went through the entire design process similar to this class. Because of this, I did not learn as much as some other students about the design process, but I did see a different approach and gained more experience, the only real way to improve as a designer. Also, time management was much harder in that class than this one. We did not have as many checkpoints, so we had to be more self-governing to keep us on track. In addition, we had to use a GANTT chart and other tools to document our progress. These skills surely helped me with this class, but I am also grateful that we were not off as much on our own.

Our robot could have been better. It would have been nice to have our fence module to play defense, but as it turned out no one really made it to our side of the arena. The biggest improvements would have been in translating the solid model to actual robot. Some of our parts were not manufactured extremely well. Part of this is attributed to inexperience, part to a lack of mill time, but part could have still gotten better. Also, we sometimes overestimated our ability to machine, such as small dimension tolerances and accurate bending (for the record, there was no possible way to build that MIT box using our bender before it broke). Also, we were not able to drive over the center ball rack, which made us one-dimensional in terms of scoring. We could have moved the delrin attachment screws or used epoxy perhaps, but either way we would have had a better chance to make it over. Lastly, and this is for Nate, we could have put surgical tubing on our telescoping arm to make it lock the flipper faster.

Sometimes this term, the best way to deal with the workload has been to use humor; as such, I start with this story: About 2 weeks ago, I talked with Professor Skerlos in an advising appointment about Grad School, and he asked me to tell him about ME250. He said that the class had been totally overhauled a few years ago, and that it is growing every year. I also recalled what my econ teacher told me in office hours one day- The first through times teaching a class, you just try to say everything that you need to in order to present the information. Then you start to get familiar and add some things, cut out some things, and it really becomes a great class, but you have to get through the growing pains. With this term, I am afraid that we might have experienced more pains than necessary for the amount of growing.

I am going to begin at a logical place- the beginning. I, and most people I talked with, came into this class very eager and excited at the possibilities. We were going to have the chance to design a robot from scratch, show off our creativity, learn about applying what we were learning in the other classes, work in a real machine shop, drive a real robot in the slotbots arena, and maybe even win the whole competition! Over time, this enthusiasm turned into confusion due to the set-up of the course and assignments.

The first things we did were drawing up some strategies, concepts, and modules. This was good, in my opinion. We had to think about many different ways to approach the same problem, and really got experience with the filter design mechanism.

Then we started getting homework. In theory, the homework assignments would have been good. They made us really think about the material in class while letting us be creative. The execution was lacking, however, and took much of this value away. The homeworks were not properly introduced in class (they were just mentioned in the timeline), nor were they reviewed afterwards. It was as if there was some sort of random add-on that actually was not connected to our lectures or discussions at all. And, after we got them back, it was hard to see what we could improve on or how we could better approach them in the future. I would recommend making sure the homework assignments are clearly part of the class, and go over them afterwards.

Next, the GSI involvement. We did have MS checks about every week or two, which was good because we had to make sure we were on course to finish the robot. However, these reviews were more checks for effort than checks for competency. We had a design review presentation, but no one sat down and said, “this part seems good, this part will never work given these motors and gearboxes, this part could be modified like this”. Yes, there was some feedback, but the biggest advantage the staff has over the students is their knowledge of the practicality of our design based on the kit, and other than one Q&A session, it felt like it was entirely up to us to know what was feasible. This seemed to be reflected in the competition, where some teams had robots that could not physically function given their design and the amount of force applied. I think in the future, there should be meetings with the GSI every 3 weeks where everything is reviewed, discussed, and modified to make sure it would work.

I wish to discuss a few more constructive ideas for the course in the future, so I ask you to bear with this train of thoughts. Observation 1: attendance decreased in lecture as the term went on. Observation 2: some of the lectures seemed to drag on. Observation 3: this class is given an incredibly large allotment of time for lectures. Observation 4: when studying for the final, I realized how many of the slides seemed to be unfiltered information that was not really necessary for this class, but was thrown in because, frankly, filling an hour and a half with information about gears or bearings is difficult in a class designed to expose students to these for possibly the first time. With these in mind, I propose that the lectures be revisited and drastically altered. Instead of having long lectures with diagrams and text sprinkled with entertaining videos, please consider having short lectures and mini-design competitions. On a topic that may not need all 80 minutes of lecture, perhaps have 50 minutes of lecture and then 30 minutes of application. There could be one for applying strategy, concept, module to a totally different problem, one for gear ratios, etc. The problems at the beginning of the class were helpful, but, in the words of my E100 professor, “Engineering problems are not solved sitting down at a desk”. How about making us get up, form new groups each time, and tackling a small assignment by applying the newly introduced information? The class would be more fun, and we’d get to know more of the peers that we are going to spend 3 years in class with.

One last request: please make the arena and its CAD the same. Right now, the CAD has slightly different dimensions, and has the white ball racks flush with the carpet, not on top. This is very frustrating when designing in SolidWorks, given a SolidWorks model of the arena, and then seeing the real thing is different. A few small adjustments would go a long way to making our task of designing a robot to play on the arena much easier.

Thank you for all of your hard work this on this class, and especially this term. Please understand that there were many aspects of this class that were outstanding, such as the helpfulness of the professors, shop staff, and GSIs, but I felt that pointing out ways to improve would be more beneficial to future students. To sum up, by changing this class for the better, it will be much easier for students to be “someone who makes new things and thinks about them”. I look forward to seeing what this class can become in future years.