ME250 was an excellent class. I was able to acquire valuable information, experiences and hands-on manufacturing skills. Thanks to Professor John Hart, Assistant Lecturer Mike Umbriac & GSI Davor Copic for providing such great assistance to our team throughout entire process.
DESIGN & MANUFACTURING
Our machines had to achieve specific requirements every time a certain milestone is reached. We started off with brainstorming a lot of concepts, sketching these concepts by hand. We narrow it down to one or two and focus on choosing the strategy and then following that, a specific module. During these design phases, we have to consider a lot of factors affecting the performance of the robot such as materials, manufacturability, choices of gear ratios and so on. It was very troublesome but with the help of the GSI, we managed to finalize our module, strategy and concept and draw the entire robot on solid CAD model. At this point, we are able to produce solid CAD drawings of the entire robot, bills of materials, an engineering drawings and a manufacturing plan. With these achieved, we can start manufacturing.
We manufactured the parts according to the engineering drawings and the manufacturing plan. The engineering drawings show every dimension of the part to be manufactured whereas the manufacturing plan guides us through the whole manufacturing process. The machineries available to usage were the band saw, lathe, mill, drill press, water jet, laser cutter and other equipments that can be checked out at the machine den. Only the drill press can be used without signing up for a slot, however it can be of high demands sometimes whereas all the other machineries requires signing up no more than once a day. We learnt that each material is to be cut with different speeds/RPMs for e.g. aluminum is to cut with high RPM of around 300 whereas steel at around 50-100. And, it’s just interesting to know what or what not to be cut by the water-jet and laser cutter and see how accurate the finished product is. We learnt that manufacturing a part is very time consuming and also requires very detailed planning. Therefore, it makes more sense to purchase that particular part.
TEAM WORK & MANAGEMENT
In teamwork, we learnt to divide and assign jobs to every member of the team. Every member will bring together the finished parts where one member will put everything together. The assignment will be examined and run through by the team to make sure everything is complete. Management wise, we will assign the part where the team member is good at and with everyone’s agreement. There will be times that a team member will not be happy with the assigned task but this is when we learn how to compromise and work as a team. With good teamwork and team management, it will be easier to get stuffs done.
HOW THE COURSE CAN BE IMPROVED
I’m personally happy with the course itself. I just thought the shop training can be more detailed. It would save us more time if written instructions & recorded videos posted on Ctools such as how to use the lathe, mill, water-jet and laser cutter. Students new to these things will have an idea what to expect during the hands -on training. And also, it will be good if the shop can consider opening till to later at night.
HOW YOU COULD HAVE IMPROVED IN THE COURSE
I could have improved in this course if I had spent more time absorbing the information in lecture and do well in the exam. And also, if we as a team, were able to be more organized and start work earlier, things would have been much more easier. We should have allocated our time more wisely. Yes, I feel that being organized and starting work early is very important in this course.
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