Term Review

This term has been full of new experiences and has taught me a lot.  I had never before realized what it was that real engineers do in the real world.  I can also honestly say that the goals posted for this term were met and I have learned something about each of them.  This was a team project so teamwork was an integral part of being successful and getting along as a group.  Planning and documenting were needed when we had to design our own bridges, plan what worked best, and then document our final results with each test.  Modeling was a huge part of this quarter.  We modeled on computer programs and using physical pieces to model our ideas.  I learned new computer programs that I had never even before heard of and it has been years since I have played with K’nex.  Finally, we used analytical methods to determine the weaknesses of our bridge designs and to help us improve our designs.  

I really liked how this class was run.   However, it was not connected to the Engineering 103 lectures that we had to attend every week.  Instead of changing the course to fit the lecture and layout of every other class, I think the engineering lectures should be more generalized.  Maybe they could talk about companies in the area or what employers are looking for or something else besides the syllabus for the rest of the Engineering 103 labs.  I felt that this class should not be changed.  We didn’t need to write a design proposal or do half of what the other labs did, but I felt that it was an appropriate level of work for this class.  I also liked how we were responsible for our own blog posts each week.  I have been in groups where people don’t always pull their own weight and it is nice that my work is reflected in my grade, and no one else is riding off of the work I am doing.  It is a big change from Engineering 101 and 102 and I really welcomed the chance to do the work for me and only me.  I also really appreciated the fact that we did not have to do presentations during week 10.  I felt that since everyone was doing the same thing, it would have been really redundant.  Also, without having to prepare for a presentation, we could focus more on our designs and documenting our results.  The only thing I think I would change if doing this module next year is to have some more to do during class time.  A lot of the time my group would be done early in class and we wouldn’t know what else to do until we were dismissed.  Also, at some points we needed more K’nex pieces.  Otherwise, I would absolutely advise any incoming Engineering 103 student to take this class. 

Last week in lab we finally got to test our final design of our bridge.  We were really excited because we made a lot of changes to it and really thought it was going to do well.  However, we weren’t all that surprised when it failed relatively early.  We knew our bridge was going to fail from twisting, and it did so after only adding 14.7 pounds of sand.  This is a low number compared to most other groups, but we know that we did the best we could and we tried our hardest.  However, I am happy that there was at least one group who had a worse cost to load ratio; it makes me feel a little bit better about our efforts.