I learned quite a bit about design this semester, specifically the
complexity of the design process. It took alot of work to plan even a
simple machine like ours, but I was impressed at my team mates' solidworks
abilities, as well as our ability to work together. A cohesive and
friendly team was wonderful to work with, and I can see how important it is to
having a successful project. Although the design process was longer than
I expected, the product was well planned and performed like we predicted it would.
Although we could have inspected the table more (the room to move in
certain sections, the height of the hinge compared to the ball casters) in
order to optimize our design.
Manufacturing was
time consuming, but I found that taking your time and not being rushed is very
beneficial. Our team's steady-paced precision allowed for us to stick to
a plan about our manufacturing, and avoid the drama of getting replacement parts
and completely re-machining parts. Working on the mill, lathe, and
bandsaw was pretty fun, and it was interesting to see how to machine different
components. Our team stuck to our
manufacturing plan closely for several of our major components, but having a
physical model is different than a solidworks one, and changes were made. While the basic structure remained the same,
several unused holes tell of previous ideas that were discarded. This general concept showed me how important
prototyping is in the development of a product, as a physical model is always
better than a conceptual one.
Our members put in different amounts of work throughout the
semester, but all had a willingness to help, and there were no ‘slackers’. We had great communication through email,
texting, and calling; and no one was squeamish about contacting other group
members, which allowed for us to always be on the same page. While there were some absences from team
meetings, this is expected, as everyone is busy, but we were able to find
compatible times to meet. Planning what we
will do in a meeting prior to getting there allowed for us to be very efficient.
My performance could have been improved by maintaining
concentration throughout our meetings: I felt that after being at a meeting for
a while, I would become distracted and lose focus easily, although I was fairly
productive during the beginning of the meeting.
Also, I feel as if I was much more efficient with machining than
designing, as I did not take a liking to solidworks and was constantly stuck on
how to create parts in the program. I
suppose I was not patient enough to truly learn it well during the labs, I
would instead focus on getting the lab assignment done. Now that I have had the experience of
designing the robot, I see that it is something that I need to learn better, I
am just glad my team mates were very proficient in it.
I think the class could be improved by having a longer portion for
strategy development, and publicizing other team’s strategies in order to get a
feel for which ones are being used most commonly. I feel that our strategy was used by many and
thus was not as effective. If we would
have been exposed to all of the groups’ initial strategies and then had time to
rethink it, we would have had a more complete experience in analyzing which
strategy would work the best.
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