Bonus Blog Post to the rest of Team Barracuda

To the remainder of Team Barracuda,
Well as unsure as I am if you ladies will as see this or not noting that you have already each finished your individual reflections, I still wanted to get one final word out to you in a collective place. I wanted to give a note of thanks and give credit where it is due to all of you because I know I couldn't have done this all by myself as my personality sometimes likes to with projects (as indicated by the personality tests/evaluations we did in lecture during the first few weeks). Sure, it may have been absolutely chaotic at times, but in general I had a lot of fun getting to know each of you individually and I can't guarantee that would have happened had it not been for this class. From the late nights trying to finish things like hole placement at 10:30 pm, to the early 8 am's in the shop, I don't think I've ever had a team that's functioned more smoothly for a group project under these conditions. I wish you all the best of luck with finals over the next week as well as the next few years of school. Have a great summer and please do keep in touch. A big thanks again and until next time,
Jason

Individual Reflection: Jason Bruns

Jason Bruns

Final Reflection

ME 250 has easily been one of the biggest challenges I’ve had class wise so far here at the University of Michigan. In saying that though, I also think that it has been one of the most rewarding classes that I have taken. No longer is it just working problems on paper day in and day out, but things are now being applied to tangible items that I have had a part in building. It is crazy to look back at where we started with this class as just a simple strategy, then to see how it built up to a moving project. On top of that, it is also intimidating to realize how much more there still is to learn. However, I think that I am capable of succeeding in what I put my mind to over the course of my college career because of the base that ME 250 has given me.

            Coming into ME250 I had very little experience with manufacturing. The only things I have done by myself are the basic 1 and 2 programs at the Wilson center. While these two programs are something, they are obviously very limited because they only go as far as cutting and drilling. It was intimidating at the beginning of the semester looking at some groups that had a lot of experience, while others had none. Things went well though and I really think that I learned a significant amount about manufacturing from working in the shop. The fact that our group got an early start helped a lot when it gave us time to ask Mark or Bob for assistance/advice when we needed it.

            I also think that I became more proficient with computer aided design. In high school, I took CAD for two years, but that was two years ago. I was a little rusty coming into the semester and had to learn a little about SolidWorks, having never used it, but I picked it up quickly knowing it would be a valuable tool in life based on the emphasis it was given during lectures by the number of times we had talked about drawings.

            As far as team work goes, I really think that our group worked well together and it was great to have that kind of cooperation. In the past, I’ve had teams where it is chaotic and no one really knows what is going on. I feel like something was different with our team. Everything seemed to click. If there was a misunderstanding, it was taken care of effectively so we were all on the same page. Yes sure there may have been disagreements (cough*paint color*cough), but if that was the worst that could have been disagreed on, then I have nothing to complain about with my team.

            I think that the course could be improved by possibly changing around the schedule/layout of the course. Some of the lectures could have been condensed down so that instead of covering two days, it was just one. This would leave fewer lectures overall and more time for the manufacturing aspect of the class. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the last 2-3 weeks of the class were completely hectic trying to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. It’s not like this is our only class so balancing this project on top of other exams and personal things was a little stressful at times. So I think it would give a little more breathing room if there was a little more time at the end to build than what we were given.

            Overall, I think I performed well in the class, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do any better. I think that I could have paid attention more during lectures and taken better notes. There were too many times that I looked down at the end of the lecture and then realized I hadn’t written a thing. While I didn’t do poorly on the midterm, taking better notes could have helped me retain things better than just cramming everything in the day before the exam.

            In the end, I almost still can’t believe how fast the semester has gone. There was so much to do which caused things to just fly by. I am proud of everything that I have done and I am glad to have these experiences. 

Individual Reflection: Hayley Hunter

Hayley Hunter

Final Reflection

     While during the class I found ME 250 to be very stressful, now that it’s over I found it to be a very interesting class. I liked how we, as a team, developed a strategy, came up with design concepts, then a final design, and then we got to see it all come together as our finished product. I felt like this class was really useful because I can see how everything we learned can be applicable to us in real life as mechanical engineers.

     Our team functioned pretty well together.  We all had different strengths that allowed each of us to excel in certain areas where others weren’t as familiar. I think our main problem was not checking each other’s work. After a long day of working in the machine shop, it was not a good idea to continue working on our project and try to figure out more measurements and calculations, which is what was often the case. This led to our main problem: hole placement for our brackets were off. Usually, the hole was only slightly off so we solved this issue by drilling the hole a little larger knowing the bolt head would hide the slightly larger hole. We had to do this a number of times though and it got to be frustrating but we fixed our mistakes and our robot turned out just fine.

     The biggest challenge I had with this class was the lack of experience and prior knowledge. While I have always been a real hands-on type person, I had never worked with any of these machines so being asked to use them was a bit of a challenge at first. Once we had training and I got used to the machines, I felt more confident and was able to use the machines. I felt like our team was at a disadvantage because of this though. None of us had had any prior experience on these machines so we had a bit of a slower start whereas many other teams had prior experience that gave them a good start to machining. Even though I didn’t have a lot of experience at first, Bob and Mark were really helpful and helped our team out a lot along the way, including doing all the welding on our robot for us.

     One critique I have for this class was the lectures. I didn’t really see how they tied into our projects because a lot of the material seemed to be more complex than was necessary for this class. It would have been more useful to have more lecture slides that were directly related to how our robot would work and how it would be put together, in particular the gear boxes and motors and how to attach them to our robot. Since our group didn’t have much expertise in the assembly of our drive train, we looked at the lectures slides to figure out how we should assemble our double gear box to drive our robot. The lecture slides suggested we use a flexible tubing to attach two axles so that is what we did. We ended up having issues when the time came to test our robot; the tubing was getting in the way and our gears wouldn’t turn so our robot couldn’t move. We noticed a lot of teams didn’t use the flexible tubing and just had one long axle which didn’t seem to give them any problems. Had we known that just making one long axle would be a good option, we would have done it but instead we followed the lecture slides which ended up giving us issues.

     Overall, this class was stressful and a lot of work but it was really rewarding to see our finished product racing around on the table. This has been my favorite class so far because it allowed us to take something from the design stage to the completed final product, which will be very useful in future classes and in the real world. 

Individual Reflection: Kim Angelakis

Kim Angelakis

Final Reflection
_________________________________________________________________________________

ME250 has been a very rewarding class.  I feel as though my knowledge of the material for the class increased exponentially when we began to manufacture our robot.  It was an extremely long process but each step was crucial to the success of our final product.  I felt as though this class is the first class that has been one hundred percent applicable to our future in mechanical engineering. 

            The biggest difficulty I had with this class was my lack of prior knowledge of the material.  Many people coming into 250 have worked in the Wilson Center, on a design or formula team, had an internship that requires machining knowledge, and other backgrounds in this area.  Having no experience in this field made it very difficult to keep up with the lectures.  It also made it hard when we had to begin machining our robots.  Bob and Mark in the machine shop were extremely helpful.  We would not have been able to complete our robot without them.  They helped to show us how to use the machines, explain what order to manufacture and assemble things in, welded pieces of our project, and helped us with many other aspects of our project.  It was unfortunate that I could not learn as much from the lectures because I was missing the basic knowledge needed to follow them from the beginning.

            I think it was essential for our team to follow the design process.  I learned how important each step was including the earlier design steps.  These steps allow you to find the best possible design and strategy as well as to catch possible problems before they arise.  I did not realize when I was doing the first steps how much they would actually play into our final design.

            I would have had an even better experience in this class if I had gone in the beginning to either my GSI or one of the professors to get a general explanation of the topics.  This way I would have been able to understand more and learn more from each of the lectures.  I also could have spent more time on the first steps of the design process to possibly come up with even better ideas. 

            I also think that it would have helped to go over the different functions of the motors in context with our robots.  We also could have used more advice on our coupling system before creating it.  This was our biggest problem.  We eventually got it to work, but the plastic coupling was definitely not ideal for our robot. It would have helped us immensely to research this more before choosing the plastic coupling that was suggested in the supplemental assembly lecture. 

            It was good that there was an emphasis placed on working with teams and how useful this skill would be in the future.  This is not only a skill for mechanical engineering but a life skill no matter what you end up doing.  I think that uncovering our own learning style as well as other people’s learning styles was very important for the function of our team.  It was also interesting to discover our personality types in conjunction with how our team worked together.

            This class was a lot of work but extremely rewarding when we finally finished.  This has been the longest project I have worked on academically and to see it finally complete was gratifying.  I know that all of the skills I learned, from the team dynamic to how to use the machines, I will use in the future.  

Individual Reflection: Emily Kupa

Emily Kupa

Final Reflection

            This semester I have found ME 250 to be quite a challenge in many ways, but it has also brought me a lot of pride and confidence in my abilities. I can honestly say that ME 250 has been one of the most rewarding classes I have taken thus far in engineering at U of M, and has reinforced my decision to major in engineering in college.  Although this class was a joy to take and I definitely learned a lot, it did have challenges for me. 

            What I discovered the most from this class was learning all about the different machines, materials, and fasteners. Before taking this class, I barely knew the difference between a flat head and Phillips head screwdriver. Now, I can honestly say that I know the difference between several different fasteners and tools and when it is appropriate to use each one.  Something else I learned in this class, which I did not expect to, was discovering what kind of learning style I liked best and also the learning style associated with each member of my team. I thought this was one of the most beneficial tasks we did in lecture, because it enable me to understood my teammates more and why they acted the way they did. I believe if we did not have this understanding before going into the project, my teammates and I would have gotten on each other’s nerves a lot more and would not have worked as well together, as a team.    

            Some critiques I have for this class are that it needs to devote more time in teaching hands on training and to not assume we have previous knowledge about machine tools before going into this class. It is already very frustrating to be a women engineering student, but then to go into this class and be expected to have previous knowledge of materials and machine tools is at first intimidating. I had no prior knowledge about machine tools before going into this class and it seemed like other design teams (made up of mainly boys) had a leg up on my team (which had three women).  Also on the final, I believe there was material we were expected to know which we had never learned previously, like for instance, a bore cutter. Another suggestion I have is for isometric drawings to be covered in class in more detail, because it was a major portion of our exam and we didn’t have much practice with them. Finally, a lecture I didn’t really like was when a guest speaker came and gave us flashcards and told us to create new innovations. I did not find this lecture very beneficial and it did not seem like other students I talked with gained much from it either.

            One problem I did not really have in this class was time management. Our team finished our project very early and we really used our time well. We even had enough time to paint our robot, which was a nice end to the project. One thing I believe I could have improved on in this class was preparing and studying for the exam.  I always went to lecture, but when I went to lecture I later found I did not take notes that were detailed enough.  Therefore, when it came time to study for the exam, I found it to be a very big challenge to review the material and the lecture slides barely touch on each topic.

            All in all, this class has been my favorite engineering class thus far and I am really glad I took the class. ME 250 has steered me in the direction of engineering design for my career path and I am looking forward to taking ME 350 next term. I really think ME 250 allows you to see how our engineering classes are utilized in the work force and we were able to apply everything we had learned thus far in developing a “real” product.

            

Final Bill of Materials:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdF9kNmNodzNjLXd0ZmpTUVM0VUdpMWc#gid=0

Final Reflection:

Our team was really quite happy with the final outcome of our robot. Everything we planned on doing for we ended up getting accomplished. It was a great satisfaction seeing our robot come together and we were very proud of our end results.

Throughout the process we faced many challenges vary from the design process to manufacturing and assembly. The skills we learned in this class are applicable to real world situations and can be used in the work force. In a working environment you are going to have to work in teams and unfortunately you won't get to pick your teams like we did for this class. Even though we had the benefit of picking our own teams it is always challenging to work cohesively with many differently personalities.  It was beneficial to go through this process in order to learn the best ways to overcome these challenges and take advantage of people's strengths.

Our final robot had only a few variations on our original design.  We we're not sure at first if we wanted to use a hinge system or a spring loaded arm.  We chose the spring loaded arm because we felt it was more creative and more reliable once we could successfully manufacture it.  Once we had completely the majority of manufacturing and assembly we were able to test our robot on the competition table.  We found that although we had a lip on the bed of our robot to prevent the balls from rolling out, it did not prevent them from bouncing out when the were knocked off the tower.  After doing many trials we found the balls bounced out of both the back and the far side from the arm.  To counteract this problem we added a side barrier.  We used the extra aluminum sheet we had and bent it so we only had to make one barrier rather than two.  We used our existing fastener holes on our robot to attach the barrier so that we didn't have to drill new holes on the side of our robot.

Spring Loaded Arm

We also added aesthetic components to our robot to make it stand out from the rest.  We cut out our team name and logo on the side of our robot using the water jet.  Although we thought this was defining, we decided to also paint our robot.  We chose very vibrant and unique colors to make it stand out even more. Our additional focus on the decorative aspect of our robot paid off when we won most fabulous look!

This class allowed us to use what we learned in other classes and apply it to a real world situation.  Being such a long and time consuming project, it was extremely satisfying to finally complete our robot.  Although we had minor difficulties with our robot during competition we were happy with the end result.  After going through the entire design process we can see how important even the smallest steps are in the beginning.  We are proud to say we successfully completed this project earning the title of most fabulous.

             



                   
                                   BEFORE                                                                     AFTER

Team Barracuda Intro Video

Week 5: Paint and Practice

We finally completed assembling and trouble shooting our robot. This weekend we painted our robot using black and florescent pink rust-olium.  To do this we disassembled most of our robot except for the bottom with the driving unit.  We did not want to paint the axles and gear boxes because this would prevent the wheels from spinning.  We also avoided painting inside our arm to avoid sticking when releasing the are.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday and Tuesday were spent re-soldering a few loose wires and practicing our driving.  Each team member got to practice driving to see who would be the best driver for MS10 and our competition. We also spent time collecting pictures and clips for our video which has been uploaded for the competition.

First Movement!

Week 4: Finishing Assembly and Movement

The end of this week was filled with ups and downs.  We thought that we would completely finish assembly and be able to start moving on Thursday morning.  What we didn't expect was the inability for our gearbox to drive the weight of our robot, and the axles slipping within the coupling.  We spent the rest of Thursday trying to problem solve the issues we were having.  We tried everything from sanding down the plastic tubing to putting a pin through the tubing and axle.  Eventually the combination of all these adjustments were finish.  We tried hooking it up to the control box to test driving it again.  Unfortunately it seemed as though all our hard work had not paid off; the gears would spin until we put it down on the table.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Friday morning we decided to change the gear ratio of our gearbox to the second highest gear ratio giving us much higher torque and less speed. This would give us more force to drive our robot.  Eventually we got the gearbox back together and went to test it.  To our delight it worked! Our robot was finally moving.  As we tested it around the table we found that when we tried to knock the balls off the tower they would bounce either out the back or the far side of our robot.  We next set out to fix this unforeseen problem.  We easily fixed it by bending a piece of aluminum and attaching it to the side of our robot.  As you can see in the video above, it now works.  The last thing we did for the day was attach sand paper to our driving wheels using the Epoxy.  We did this in order to increase the friction between the wheels and the competition table.

Tomorrow we will set out to Home Depot to paint our robot.

Week 4: Assembly and Testing

This week we have the daunting task of completing our assembly and making our robot function. This is our assignment for MS9. So far two very long days have been spent in the machine shop working on assembly of our machine. Our robot is nearly completely assembled except for a few finishing touches. Our team was very surprised at how long everything took to do. At the start of this week we thought we were ahead. We didn't judge very well how long each task would take or calculate additional time needed for the unexpected problems which evidently are part of every step of the process for us. We thought the most time consuming task was already complete (machining all the parts of our robot). However, to our surprise, the assembly time has exceeded expectations and may take even longer than machining the parts did. Finishing touches of assembly and testing are next. We are looking forward to seeing our robot move!

__________________________________________________________________________________


Yesterday and today we mainly focused on assembly, but we did have to machine the last few pieces of our robot. What was left to machine was drilling a few holes in the sheet metal and also reaming the holes in the axel brackets and press fitting the bushing into the bracket. We faced some struggles with the axel brackets like the axels not fitting through the bushing once the bushings had  been press fitted. To solve this problem we had to ream the bushings so the axels could fit through the holes. We also had to use a special press fit when fitting the ball bearings for the back wheels.
_________________________________________________________________________________





Besides from machining, our main task for this week was assembly. During the assembly you realize several different problems you weren't expecting to encounter and it really forces you to use your problem solving skills just to find a solution. When we started assembling it seemed like a third of the holes didn't line up with the brackets. Instead of unassembling everything we decided to use a power drill to just make the holes a little bigger allowing the fastener to fit through the holes.  We also ran into the problem that some of the brackets would run into each other, so the solution we came up with was using the grinder to file down the edges that were hitting one another. The only other main problem we had to face was hooking up the axels to the double gearbox and making sure our machine could move.

Final Manufacturing Plan:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdDdCa0dLRmFPN3A3X1d6VkhmNFdXLXc#gid=0

Final Bill of Materials:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdF9kNmNodzNjLXd0ZmpTUVM0VUdpMWc#gid=0