Note: I took the main subject areas to be those outlined under “Primary Topic Area” in the syllabus

This year, ME 270 helped me in fundamentally understanding topics that I am currently using in iRobotics and it’s always illuminating to see the ways that this course can be directly applied to different topics. The most obvious case was during the ESPL access to the machining shop, in which many of the questions we had learned in class which made the test significantly easier. However, as many of the labs coincided with turning and machining, I feel better prepared to use these machines and machining processes in the future for my own work. Especially before EOH when much of the day will be spent machining L-brackets.

The ways that stress and strain can affect the forces that a material can be subjected to was a material property I always saw as a fixed, rigid number before. However, in this class we learned the ways the microstructure of particles can be affected by other factors as well, such as temperature or as seen in mini project 8, tempering/austenitizing in order to change the strength and brittleness of a material. Additive and direct manufacturing processes I enjoyed learning about in lecture because I had no idea so many methods of additive manufacturing existed. For example, at the beginning of this course I had no idea there were ways of creating a product with no support structure in an additive way. Injection molding was very satisfying and I liked seeing how different factors affected mold flow since that is a practice that prevented me from having creative control in my own designs. The biggest effect that learning about joining processes had was on my plan to take a welding course before I graduate and getting to talk with my roommate who is taking welding about MIG and TIG processes with some foundational knowledge. I remember one particular question in a mini project on advanced manufacturing that allowed me to see the benefits and disadvantages in full automation when compared to manual assembly and that will help me be more conscious of the implications of decisions on workers.

In the main project, many of my contributions came in the form of design to cost and working with aPriori helped me evaluate the implications of each decision in production and since we had so many parts, I could even start to see patterns in the way that each part was analyzed for costs. I also created the front cover for the staple holder as well as the two frame channels then analyzed how the changes to these parts affected the PDS. Unfortunately, my measurements for the frame channel were a bit off in height so attention to complete detail will be something I work on in the future. This also ocurred in mini projects, in which I would spend far too long on a single question which was already answered and led to a decrease in productivity of my work. I also struggled with time management and did not complete the work early enough to use the resources such as TAs or office hours to perfect the work. This course challenged me to master the technical knowledge before considering applications as wellI and I struggled to do that without any online resource I could immediately turn to, as for physics.I was definitely good at evaluating constraints and analyzing and interpreting data. Highlights of this course are definitely the people, getting to show off completed projects, and the labs working with the knowledge we obtain from class.

-Isis Romero