Pat Milligan's Reflection

Patrick Milligan

ME 250 Reflection

Dec 9 2010

Note: Sorry this is really long! I had a lot of thoughts on this class that may or may not be interesting to you. A lot of the ‘what I learned’ consists of personal learning as a result of failure and probably isn’t broadly applicable. If you read nothing else, please review the suggestions. I put a lot of thought into these, and I think they are simple and can make a big difference!

What I learned and how I would improve

­When I entered this class, after about a week I decided that this class would be my easiest this semester. I had all the bases covered. I was in FIRST Robotics for all four years of high school, which included designing to a challenge, working under time pressure, manufacturing a design, and working with a team. I was in Physics 240, had taken MSE 250, had some exposure to CAD, and was comfortable working in machine shops. What did I stand to learn from this class?

Fast forward to today. As I write this, another team is in the process of winning $300, many others are celebrating the end of a fun and rewarding class, and I’m sitting on the side contemplating our excuse of a robot and hoping, hoping! that I squeaked by and passed this class. What on earth went wrong, what changed, ay, for goodness sakes how did I end up here?

There are numerous things, as I think back, that I could blame for my failures in this class. A lot of things completely outside of academics went wrong this semester. I was also overwhelmed by course load; I ended up dropping a class and a number of commitments after stress started seriously affecting my mental health. My team was full of fellow over-busy people and we rarely found common time to meet and work. None of us were very good at using the high-tech machines. We had small errors in our design that compounded into catastrophic ones. The list goes on.

But it is too easy to use these problems as excuses and simply move on. When I think about it, some patterns emerge that I can identify and improve on. Lack of focus is painfully obvious. Same for being overconfident in myself and my abilities, which killed my motivation to learn and improve. I also wasn’t a good leader; too often I accepted the first answer I heard instead of allowing my team members to work and perform their best.

To make a long story short (see the first draft of this essay), I failed as an engineer. I have heard over and over how important failure is in growing as an engineer, and I guess the three lessons I mentioned above are, for me, the results of this failure. If I have to do this class over again, I will already be practicing these lessons. In terms of focus, I cut out a lot of my activities that weren’t as important to me to free up time and dropped a class so that I could do better in the other three. Being overconfident in myself was slowly shattered this semester as well. And for being a good leader, I learned many important lessons that I will use frequently.

That is all well and good. I’m glad I learned from the experience. But as I look at this, one question comes to my mind over and over: ‘where is the line drawn?’ Where does pushing yourself to do better meet not stretching yourself too thin and focusing down? Where does the problem of over-confidence meet the problem of under-confidence, and which is worse? Where does being a leader meet taking too much responsibility? I’ve been on both sides of all of these equations at one point or another. The only answer I can come up with is: let experience be your best teacher, and this is one more experience to bank on and relate to.

Course Improvement Suggestions

Shop – Shop training needs to be more comprehensive. While Bob and John realize that the one-hour introduction isn’t enough, the only caveat is ‘just get us to help you’. That works well if you are the only one in the shop. Otherwise, your options are –wait a half hour, get help and get the first step right, then wait again for help with the second step; or –try to do it on your own and risk screwing your part up or getting the hook for improper/unsafe procedure. Something has to be improved.

Here’s one suggestion. Make it an early assignment to produce a part on the mill and lathe. Give students an engineering drawing with a simple part that requires mill and lathe work, and include very detailed, very specific instructions for how to set up the mill and lathe to do the work. Bob and John wouldn’t have to be bothered if the instructions are good. Try to include the procedures and skills that students will use most often in the project.

This would help tremendously with confidence and understanding of the machines, both of which were very lacking among students during the project (especially at the beginning, which I believe was part of the reason my group fell behind).

Lectures – Presentation of lecture material could be improved. There has to be a better way to get through it all than a 90-minute, 60-slide, straight-shot lecture. It just gets really difficult to pay attention and think about difficult concepts after a while when, frankly, it is flat out boring. I’m not a student who doesn’t care; I have a 3.8 and I rarely skip or sleep on class, but I struggled with the lectures. Most other students I talked to expressed similar opinions.

Two simple suggestions for improvement:

-Pause and give students a 5-minute mental break in the middle of the lectures. My eng101 professor, Alex Bielajew, strongly believed in this concept, and I agree that it made it easier to pay attention for the full period

-Use different methods of presenting material during class. To reference eng101 again, the professor frequently used powerpoint slides, writing on the whiteboard, physical examples, having students do examples in front of class, and actively programming during class with student input. Using the same method of teaching over and over again is like driving 40 mph through Kansas. Try to adapt some material in each lecture to a different format.

Finally, a general suggestion for the class. This may not be your responsibility to determine, but I believe the scope of this class is too wide. The instructors are trying to teach a huge range of topics, and each instructor understandably wants students to learn a lot about that particular subject. Prof Hart emphasized comprehensive design skills, my GSI Davor wanted us to be excellent at CAD, the lecturer Mike Umbriac wanted us to be great at precision design and engineering drawings, the shop instructors Bob and John wanted us to be excellent machinists. The material covered ranged from MSE (an entire class, MSE250, in a single lecture) to perspective drawing skills to mechanical components to electrical circuits and more.

The result, in my mind, is that none of it gets covered and learned as well as instructors would like. This is a 4-credit class, not the entire Michigan Mechanical Engineering department. If it is your responsibility to decide content for this class, I would strongly suggest narrowing the list of topics and focusing a bit more.