Individual Reflection –Sean Hadley

Design:
I found the distinctions made in the course between “Strategy”, “Concept” and “Module” interesting. Before this course, my mechanical design process was usually an organic evolution from project specs to product. I never bothered to formally define each stage. In particular, this course showed me the importance of isolating strategy from its method of implementation. In this way, more innovative strategies may be considered.
Besides good manufacturing, I believe much of our success in the Slotbots competition can be attributed to selecting a simple and effective design. I was impressed with our team’s ability to pool ideas and communicate to determine this design.

Manufacturing:
Prior to this class, I was familiar with most standard shop machines. The manufacturing method I learned the most about during this class was “at assembly” construction with hand tools. By this I mean creating a part without an engineering drawing to fit a very tightly defined situation. Though I have significant experience with mechanical design and manufacturing, I have never performed a project where more “at assembly” decisions were required. The time constraint and ever changing starting configuration forced us to determine the mounting position of the ram, entire shape of the yoke, and motor/winch assembly after the rest of the slot mechanism was assembled. This gave me substantial experience taking measurements and building to fit. I realize that “at assembly” decisions are not good engineering practice, but without them we probably could not have completed the project in time.

Teamwork:
Probably the most valuable aspect of the class was the lessons it taught me about organizing an informal team. All of my work experience has been in teams with tightly defined command structures and jobs. I was a little lost at first when I was neither in a position to give nor receive orders. We eventually identified the skills of each member and assigned them work accordingly. I was primarily responsible for mechanical design. In the future I will take care to explain my work and conclusions to my teammates. I realize at times I did not do a very good job of that, and it must have been frustrating to my teammates.

Time Management:
Time management was extremely important during this project. I believe our team handled it well by assigning tasks to whomever could complete them most quickly and effectively. I believe work was shared as evenly as possible.

How to Improve Course:
The competition rules need to be solidified far in advance of the competition. Our team was set back every time the starting configuration was changed because we were forced to do redesigns. Eventually, we came up with a design that could be customized to fit the starting configuration after assembly. Also, I do not believe the individual assignments in the beginning of the term aided in my learning very much. It might be better to dedicate this time to slotbot design and manufacture.

How to Improve my Performance:
As mentioned above, the primary thing I could have improved was explaining the reasoning behind my designs to my team. I believe I improved on this throughout the semester. Also, I wish I had been able to work as a team more often as appose to completing work in the dead of night and delivering it in the morning. Finally, it would have been nice to not have messed up my submission of CAD homework #1.

Shoutouts:
Tyler-We owe the high quality of manufacturing to Tyler. His mad mill skills allowed us to use a single block of aluminum for most of our parts, something I didn’t think possible.
Pat-Pat did a great job with the blog and video. Also, he is a very talented free hand sketcher which greatly improved the speed and quality of our design process.
Casey-Casey is an awesome manager. Everything would have been done a month late and not to spec if is wasn’t for him. Seriously, the guy could herd cats.