Final Reflection: Jess Costantini

Completing ME 250 this semester has taught me about designing, manufacturing, teamwork and time management.

During the design process, I have learned to keep in mind the limits of a project, such as available materials, manufacturing ability and time. All four of my team members and I were new to manufacturing, a factor that played a large role in the design of our machine. In order to design a machine that minimized input and maximized output of these three and other qualities, we tried for simplicity. If there were one thing I would wish to take away from this class, it would be that simple is better.

I came into this ME 250 class with little exposure to manufacturing processes. Learning to use the mill, drill press and other basic handheld tools was both interesting and a little intimidating at first. After a while though, it was gratifying to be able to make a connection between a part on paper and the correct machining method to yield a finished part in 3D. From carrying out these machining processes, I also learned the importance of double, triple checking everything. We had several bad moments when our parts didn’t fit exactly how we needed them to and resulted in time lost from our already chaotic schedule. For example, the aluminum base plate (which catches the lip of the restraint tubing as it slides down in the restraint housing to keep the anchor from slipping through our machine completely) was just a smidgen too small for the restraint to slide through. We spent well over an hour filing it down to the correct size.

A large part of teamwork is communication. Something I learned about communicating with my team in ME 250 and something I personally had an issue with was the importance of being assertive. I believe this is what I would change about my performance in this class. I found, especially in a class that requires such varied work (CAD models, manufacturing, blogging, etc.), that splitting the workload in terms of peoples’ strengths was helpful. I also learned the benefit of preparing for a meeting ahead of time. The more prepared we were individually, the more efficient our meetings became. Later on, as our team utilized sources such as Google Docs our efficiency increased even more.

The one change I would suggest for this course is more emphasis on manufacturing early. By the time our team realized the nearness of the due date and began serious manufacture mode the machine shop was swamped, whereas the previous week there had been machines open. Otherwise the GSI’s, instructors and machine shop instructors did a great job of preparing us for the class.

My experience in ME 250 was enjoyable. Although the class was a great deal of work and put me through a steep learning curve, the majority of what I learned will be of great use in the future. It will be interesting to see what ME 350 and 450 have in store.

-Jess