The part of the class that stuck out most to me were the first couple lectures on design. I thought these were the most important and the lectures are very clear and easy to follow. The steps and tools such as FRDPAARC and CAD to help break down and visualize the idea are what I will remember best of everything, and the recursion of the steps. Design heavily impacts production, so thinking ahead is very valuable. The most time should be spent early on with strategies and design to make things easier, and also so that you can test and be prepared when things go wrong. Also design often times takes thinking out of the box and applying the design principles to many aspects of the design.
Teamwork is the strongest tool we had, but it could also be a hindrance. Sometimes our group worked best when we split up the work to be done by individuals. Team chemistry is an important part of a team and everyone has to be on the same page working in the same direction for the team to be most successful. Teamwork is also something that needs to be practiced and you need to go into it with an open mind.
Time management is half of the battle in design. The other half is restricted creativity, but you can’t really learn creativity. A huge part of time management for this class was managing your time to fit with other people’s schedules because it is a group project and to be free when the shop is open. This means managing your time with other classes and your personal life, which can be very difficult.
This is my first semester at Michigan and the College of Engineering, so the workload and style of learning were new to me. I felt like a lot of the content was left ambiguous for creativity, but I needed more structure. Often times in class being able to see and visualize things was the most helpful, such as the first time we got to actually see the real arena. When I was first creating my ideas, I did not even know what we were and were not able to do in the competition, so spending some more time early on understanding what we’re trying to accomplish would have helped a lot. The advice, quotations and cartoons are often what people remember, so choose them well and be creative with the ways you’re teaching to people because the lectures became very repetitive and boring after a while, and design is a very interesting subject.
I could have done a lot to improve my grade and performance in this class by managing my time better. It was difficult for me to meet with the team early on because I was at water polo practices and away on tournaments so much. I should have buckled down on my work in everything else to be there for the team. Also I could have gone to Office hours and reviewed more for the exam. Overall I learned a lot, regardless of the grade or machine.
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