Week 10 - Term Review

           This week we had our final competition. This did not go as well as I anticipated. As a group we took a big risk. We used a design that conceptually sounded like a good idea. It was low in cost and on paper seemingly efficient. Well, we made a big mistake. This bridge did not hold the weight I anticipated. It broke under the meager weight of 10 pounds in comparison to my last design which held 20 pounds.  This mistake was due to not keeping the X cross sections on the sides and moving them to the bottom members. We should have stuck with our original design. If we modified it we could have reduced the cost and maintained the amount of weight it held making our cost to weight ratio better.

               

             This class was a lot different than all my other Engineering courses this term. The course was designed to teach the students many topics like computer modeling, teamwork, static analysis and documenting. While every topic was touched upon, I really only felt that I truly learned about half of them. I definitely felt that I learned a lot about documenting, teamwork, computer software, computer modeling and design process. Out of all these topics I felt that I learned the most about documenting. I felt that blogging made me document the process correctly. I felt this was the most beneficial thing I learned. As an engineer I will always need to document and record my processes, designs and results. Overall I loved this class but I would have loved it a lot more if the work was more individual and less structured. I wanted time to test our bridge in lab which would have allowed me to experiment with more designs. I also would have liked if the goals and objective were clearly laid out before class so once I entered class I could use the 2 full hours of class and start working right away.  I believe Engineering 103 should be a class where the student is in control.  Students should have to complete certain tasks by a certain time but I feel that the work should be individual and guided by the Ta’s and professors.