When I first signed up for ME 250 here at U of M I didn’t know what to expect. Would it be time consuming, boring, hard, frustrating or even fun? What I discovered is that it had a little bit of all those things and more.
The first thing I really noticed about this class was that it was going to be very free and open. From my previous classes, I was used to having a professor holding my hand for each step of the class. It wasn’t long before I began to have an eerie sensation as if someone had told me to go for a bike ride while secretly disabling my training wheels. I was worried, frustrated and even a little frightened as to what might happen. But what surprised me most is that I liked it. In this submersion of independence I was forced to thrive. I was forced to compete, learn, and grow in my understanding of mechanic concepts in order to make our robot function properly.
Another critical element of the class for me was that it was largely focused on teamwork. I felt very blessed to be have such a great group. I heard that most groups seemed to have a lot of trouble working together and that a lot of frustration was caused. But our group worked together really well. Everyone cared a lot about the assignment and we were all willing to put time into meeting together. Everyone was willing to take up individual tasks as well. I saw that each person in our group really was better in some areas and worse in other areas and it was our willingness, motivation for success, understanding and selflessness that ultimately enabled us to harness our strengths and pick up the slack of our weaknesses.
I also learned the importance of organization and managing time wisely. Towards the beginning of the semester it seemed like we had an abundance of time, and we did. But we would often put off doing things until it was almost due which made it much more stressful at times. Also, as we talked about in class, it is essential to go through many different ideas early on in the design process. And while we did go through many different strategies and concepts we didn’t do much analysis of how well they would actually work. So we were almost out of time before we realized a few things we could have changed to make our robot much more successful. This was also partly due to the fact that it was our first formal hands on design project.
One thing I wish the course could have done better was telling us specific yet important details sooner. For example, the slot bots rules changed several times pretty late into the semester (such as the starting zones). Also, my initial strategy was to block the flipper and the cone and then that rule got changed so I couldn’t use my strategy/concepts/modules from the first part of the class.
I am kind of happy with my performance during this course. I only wish I could have been a little more involved in the design process of our group. I helped out with some of our design and understood it pretty well, but I wish I could understand it more fully so I am better prepared for next time. I also would like to be more comfortable using the machinery in the shop.
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