Since I just transferred this fall semester from another college, this ME 250 class was my first class that I took here at the University of Michigan. At first, I did not expect to make any machines made out of any metal things in this class. I just thought I would design a machine by cad programming and make simple thing. Honestly, when I went to the ME training shop, I was not familiar with any kinds of machines there and I felt like ‘Wow, this class should be much harder than I thought.’ However, I did not have the choice. Therefore, when I first came to the lecture and heard that students are supposed to design a machine that will move the balls to the opposite side, I wondered if I could successfully complete this course.
I cannot forget many nights that I struggled with homework and cad assignments. I had never used cad program before, so it was hard for me even though I was living with the cad tutorials. At the end, however, I learned a lot about using cad designing from lectures and GSI’s help. I enjoyed doing modeling little bit. I now feel quite experienced with SolidWorks. The cad assignments helped me a lot.
Another main problem was making the real machine. It seemed impossible at first. However, as the professor, GSIs and machine shop directors taught each step of the designing process, we could slowly design our machine and manufacture it. The idea that we planed about our machine was just perfect. However, unexpected error and problem happens all the time. At the same time, however, making process was the best time for me even though I could not participate on it many times. I had some problem about my international student status and it made me panic that time so I really appreciate to my teammate’s efforts. Anyway, it was really fun to make things on my own and it made me go back to the lecture slides and learn the contents. I gain much motivation about materials covered in lecture to complete our machine. In other words, making a machine gave me the basic reason to study.
Finally, I learned the importance of teamwork and distribution. While in ME 250 class, we were assigned a lot of assignments. To finish all that assignments correctly and on time, we better divide the work to each teammate. By distributing all the work, we could have finished the assignments quickly. Our teammates did really good job that I was not able to finish sometimes. If there were no help from them, I would not have finished the assignments. I am sure that everyone who passes this class will know that the importance of the group work.
I definitely will take things from ME250 that will help me in my future. I am sure that will be very helpful especially whenever I am working with other people. Although we could not win in the contest, I am proud of the final product we built and appreciate to my all teammates.
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