Dan Forhan Class Reflection

This was a great class for me this semester. It helped offset the tedious workload in my other classes, gave me hands on experience in the shop, and kept me interested in engineering. I learned a lot in the class, most notably how to learn by doing which is a topic not covered in most textbook oriented classes. I have always loved using my hands and building things, and that was the best part of this class for me. The group aspect was fantastic, and I developed a strong bond with my group.
We chose our original design due to its simplicity and ease of build. This turned out to not be the case, but our design still came together quite well. In retrospect, i am shocked at how well the initial drawings resemble the final design. The use of CAD drawings really helped our group in our planning stages. Solidworks is a fantastic program and by learning some more advanced tricks, I feel that our group benefited more from its use. We used the program to do some stress testing, find the total mass of our machine before we started building, and used it to start picking parts. I feel that I have developed a great grasp of how Solidworks works and how to use it to assist in design.
Our building started slowly, but as we got more confident in the machines and the processes used we began to take chances and put together a product. We made many mistakes, but the kit and the professors and GSI’s were forgiving and always there to help us. Because we didn’t feel constrained in what we could do we learned much more than we would have otherwise. It was especially nice that the shop was open longer hours than normal, as we spent many days in the shop until well into the evening hours.
This class stood out the most for me in how we learned to solve problems we face every day. When the lectures started up, I felt that the information was overwhelming and unneeded. But as we started building and designing our machine, I understood the importance of the lectures and the approaches to design that were taught. I truly enjoyed the lectures, and feel that I gained much insight on how to solve complicated problems through procedures and tests.
There are a few areas that this class could be improved. It is most likely because this was the first semester that this class was implemented, but it seemed as though most of the assignments were being tested for the first time on us. I personally don’t mind being a guinea pig for a class, and actually found it quite interesting, but oftentimes the lack of direction and certainty of the assignments got some students upset. This was especially noticeable on the exam, as it was definitely too long for the time given. I would have loved to have another hour or even 30 minutes to formulate my ideas on the design portion of the exam. Overall the class came together quite well, especially the final competition. I thoroughly enjoyed the competition, even though our group met with an unfortunate ending. It was well layed out and a lot of time had obviously been put into planning it. It was a fitting end to a very enjoyable class.