Reflecting on ME 270 - Danielle Helms

ME 270 was a great way to gain hands-on experience and a glimpse into the real world of engineering. I think it was beneficial to work in the same group through the whole semester on labs and projects, because it gives insight to the type of work environment that we may grow accustomed to in the workforce. It was also really helpful in that as we went on, we were able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of ourselves as well as each other and use that knowledge to divvy up the tasks in a more efficient way. For example, I am stronger in CAD than I am at coming up with answers to some of the more thorough questions. After realizing this, I ended up leading some of the CAD processes and by doing that, time was freed for other group members to answer some of the questions I may have had difficulty with. I think that this project gave me a good background for the ideation, design, and manufacturing processes referenced in the day-to-day jobs of engineers. During the steps of the main project, we were guided these processes. After our product was chosen, we were given instruction on how to constructively brainstorm new and better parts for the product. Some of these included complete transformations such as the integration of the speaker into a water bottle. By having this session, we were able to identify many more ideas than if we had just gone straight to one specific design to begin with. During the labs, we were able to get a look at how the design of a product would really affect the cost of production. From the size of the product to the varying manufacturing methods available, there are far more aspects to the design for manufacturing process than I realized. We were able to apply this knowledge to the redesign of parts of our product. By combining several parts together on the handlebar clamp of the speaker holder, we were able to not only make the product more user-friendly, but cheaper as well. We were also able to cut costs in relation to the band that was holding the speaker in place by replacing it with a more user-friendly clamp. By actually getting hands on learning experience, I think it will be much easier to apply these learned skills later on when I go to work in a field relating to these processes.