Ioannis Pantelakis
12/12/09

Individual Reflection

From the first day in class, when Professor Hart talked about the class and how it has changed compared to the other semesters, I felt that this class would be different than the other engineering classes I had taken thus far. Now, three and a half months later, I can definitely say that I was right.
In this class we were told from the first day that we have a goal, and this goal was to make a mechanism and compete in the arena. Throughout the semester we were all working and improving our knowledge and skills in order to succeed in the arena. We started in class being taught about the design process and we ended up in the machine shop putting all our components together. That is what made this class different than the others. Usually, in my other classes I had to learn the theory, of solid dynamics or thermodynamics for example, do my weekly homework and take the exams. In this class we did not have to just learn the theory, but also and apply it, in order to achieve our goal.
One of the most important aspects of this class was the design process. We initially had to think of a strategy, draw it on a piece of paper and then draw a far more detailed sketch using solidworks. After this process is completed we had to get into the machine shop and had to create what was initially just a sketch on a piece of paper. Personally, I had never used an auto-cad program or any of the machines I used in the shop before. Obviously this was a really important experience for me because it is essential for an engineer to be able to use auto-cad programs to design different components and then have the ability to create the actual components in the lab.
Teamwork is always one of the most important aspects when you have to deal with group projects. In the beginning of the semester we all had to get into teams with some of our classmates from our lab section. Due to a misunderstanding I was left without a team and therefore I joined the “The Victors” that were from another lab section. I have to say that I felt very lucky I was put in that team because all the members are good and hardworking students and I think that we worked well together. However, the fact that my team members were from another lab section, that I was not able to attend, made the class harder for me. Sometimes I felt that I was a little bit lost and some other times I felt that I was not offering my team as much as I could offer.
Therefore, I would say that in order to improve my performance in the class and in my team, I would have to be more involved than I was. I strongly believe that if I were in the same section with the rest of my team members I would perform better.
In general I have to say that this class was really interesting. We didn’t just learn important things but we also learned how to actually use those things in reality. I believe that it was a hard class, mostly because of the work load. We had a lot of deadlines due every week which made us work a lot for this class. On the other hand, all those deadlines, made it really easy for all the teams to manage their time and progress because deadlines kept us on track throughout the semester.