I am happy with what I brought to the team this year. On the hard skills side of things, I was key in CADing many of the more complex parts in our stapler product, doing all of the assemblies, and knowledge of TAM 251 necessary to complete many of the mini project problems. As for soft attributes, my team members and I fit very well together which helped make our immense workload more bearable. I also helped encourage proactivity, but this skill could be greatly improved upon. Our team was constantly losing sleep when pushing much of the main and mini projects closer to the deadlines. I think where we lacked most was not being able to keep momentum into the weekend to get a significant amount ahead. Even though we did very well with it, there is clearly room to improve for our time management skills.

    I learned a lot in this course. I liked how the knowledge is less theoretical and much more practical to our futures as engineers. I now feel much more comfortable and confident in designing parts to be made from different materials and designing for different manufacturing methods after weighing their advantages and disadvantages. For example, I could choose one of machining, turning, casting, forging, welding, or mechanically fastening metal parts based on the desired symmetry, form freedom, tolerances, strength requirements, and manufacturing or assembly time and ease. The greatest thing I’ve learned is to balance cost, quality, and functionality in engineering design decisions.

    My favorite part of the course was designing and implementing a workable solution that will improve the cost, quality, or functionality of a real product because we finally got to apply the knowledge from the lectures in a real design project. Self-researching, especially in the mini projects, was the hardest part in my opinion since there is so much to sift through and not always a single right answer.

    I am excited to apply what I have learned in future jobs and internships. I feel that this is the first class in my University career that has prepared me for a real-world engineering career.

 

Randy Janson