ME 250 Individual Reflection - Jonah Shapiro

I did not know entirely what to expect when I first started ME 250 at the beginning of the semester. And as I end the semester, I am still not quite sure what to make of it. There were many ups and downs throughout the course of this very unique and challenging class. I know I have come a long way from where I started and have learned significantly more in this class thant I have in other classes. For one, I had no idea how much preparation and time went into the design process. I learned a lot about starting with a broad, unfocused idea and narrowing it down through the use of the group discussion and other tools, such as FRDPARRC tables, and coming out of the process with a focused and specific goal.

Any time you have the chance to work with a team on a project it ias always beneficial. Having had some real world job experience over the summer has shown me that being able to effectively work as a part of a team is crucial to a successful project both in and out of school. Even from the very beginning with the video of the team designing a shopping cart, teamwork was one of the main points emphasized in the class and one that I feel is the most valuable.

Part of the class that could be improved is the homework assignments during the first half of the semester. They seemed to be far too specific on their particular topics and I did not find any of the information used on them to be helpful at all during the project. All the design homework was good because it showed us how to hone our ides and how to help critique others, but any information I got from figuring out how hard a weightlifter could push down on a unicycle pedal was useless when it came ti the final project or for any other part of the class. I recognized a lot of the equations from other engineering and physics classes, and those assignments would have fit perfectly in those classes. But trying to put them into a design class that has no prerequisites and included studetns from other engineering disciplines besides mechanical seemed unfair and unnecessary.

Also, the exam format should be greatly shortened. I do not see anything to be gained in forcing students to sprint through several, long problems and I do not feel that this could possibly give an accurate representation of the students' knowledge, esecially when they can not even attempt each problem due to time constraints. Using a select few questions and allowing for adequate time to finish the entire exam would give you a much better idea of the students' capabilities.

I feel very proud of the work I have done in the class and the work done by my team. I feel like I fully aplied myself during the labs and shop times and would not change my performance in that aspect of the class. I could have, however, paid more attention during the lectures and tried harder to take more away from them, as opposed to biding my time until they were finished. A lot of times I found myself returnig the the lecture slides to look something up, when I could have learned it the first time I saw it had I been paying more attention.

Once the class moved beyond the tedious and time-consuming assignments and I got used to the heavy workload and late nights spent on north campus working on the project, I truly enjoyed the class. I loved being able to actually make something and get to see it move and compete against other machines. I imagine it to be much more satisfying than making a wooden cup holder shaped like a toilet, such as in previous ME 250 classes. And while I was at first envious of them for not getting such a difficult and demanding project, I am extremely glad that we got the assignment that we did.