Reflecting on ME 270 - Haley Tholen

Personally, ME270 was the best class that I have taken at the University of Illinois so far. Not only do students learn about all of the “methods to the madness” in industry, but they also gain hands-on experience with various manufacturing machines.  

First of all, I would like to point out the fact that our team worked very well together for this project. One of the main factors in a project’s success is the ability for a team to work through the struggles, laugh a little along the way, and come up with a final, satisfactory product. From trips to the scrap yard, to late nights in MEL, to calling each other a few minutes before submitting an assignment at midnight, we were always striving to do our best work with the time and resources we had available. I would have to say a strength of mine within this team project was not necessarily on the technical side of things, but more-so being the “planner” of the group. I tried my best to make sure everyone was staying on top of their work; if someone had an exam, we would make adjustments to the schedule so that our project work would not affect our performance in other classes. On the other hand, my weakness as a team member would most likely be redesign. For example, if we had to adjust a CAD model with different dimensions and/or shapes, I was not overly helpful with revising the CAD to meet the requirements. 

The first topic we covered in ME270 was the design process, which is an important first step to production. We learned a lot about the design process during our main project as we created an innovated part to improve the design. We also learned about 3D printing, specifically FDM with PLA filament as we printed out our innovated parts for the bike speaker. The next topic that we covered extensively was subtractive manufacturing. We learned about this process mostly through lab as we created a mold out of aluminum and eventually injected the cast with resin to gain experience with injection molding. Going off of injection molding, we covered a bit of material revolving around the casting process. The learning for this topic took place in lecture for the most part through videos and examples. A crucial part of the design analysis process is being able to create a Design of Experiments to test the effects of several variables at once. We further used this strategy as a large part of our bike speaker data analysis. The next unit covered welding, brazing and soldering, and adhesive bonding. These methods of physically binding parts together is extremely important in industry. It is quite expensive and near impossible to manufacture a typical multi-step product in a single step with one material and one manufacturing process. Bonding allows us to create products with complex geometries and compositions. Perhaps the staple of this course is the unit called “Design for Assembly.” Without taking into consideration the assembly and disassembly process, the product will quickly move to the bottom of the list in terms of design, functionality, and convenience. We learned about this topic by designing an innovated part for our bike speaker to be as simple and minimal as possible. The final unit in ME270 is sheet metal work. We have already learned about the general machining process for sheet metal through one of our mini projects. We were able to purchase a few items from the scrap yard that were interesting to analyze. Sheet metal is all around us in everyday life, so I particularly enjoyed learning about the “behind the scenes” processes that create some products that are in high demand today.

One of the biggest challenges for me in the course was definitely within the machining unit. Prior to the course, I was not familiar with subtractive manufacturing processes such as milling, drilling, and turning. However, since we spent quite a bit of time learning about these important methods, I now feel like I have a fairly strong grasp on the topics at hand. Without a doubt, my strongest unit within ME270 was 3D printing. I have quite a bit of experience with additive manufacturing since I am personally invested in it and also have worked on 3D printing techniques within research and internship opportunities. I enjoyed learning about this topic the most because I felt like the information we were learning in class was directly applicable to my work outside of class. I find ME270 to be extremely applicable to real-life engineering practice, especially compared to the more general coursework that engineers start with. I am able to tell companies that I have experience with all different types of manufacturing processes, which is unique and appealing. The skills gained from ME270 peak an interest in students - whichever unit excited them the most is likely to be the field they go into. It is extremely valuable to have experiences like those we gained in ME270 at this point in our college careers so that we can be prepared and qualified for internships, co-ops, personal projects, and future courses.