ME 382 - Introduction to Mechanical Design

Sample Course Syllabus

Fall 1993
David Ullman, 212 Rogers, x2336
Bob Paasch, 318 Rogers, x4646

Class hours:
Lecture; MWF 11:30-12:20
Lab; Th 9:30-11:20 or
Th 11:30- 1:20 or
Th 2:30-4:20 or
Fri 2:30- 4:20

Course Objectives:

This course has four interwoven objectives:

To accomplish all of these goals simultaneously is not easy. To make things more complicated, the only way to teach design is to have you create designs to open-ended problems, problems with a large number of good solutions. Thus, to accomplish all of these goals the course will be focused around a design project.

Reading Material: The Mechanical Design Process, Ullman, McGraw Hill

Grading: Grading will be based on:

Note that the last three items (55% of the grade) are based on the results of a team project. Each of the graded items are described below.

Individual Design Notebooks: You are to keep a design notebook for use in this course. This is to be a spiral bound notebook such as National 33-610 which has graph paper on the back of each lined sheet. All work concerning the design project will be entered into this notebook. This includes all sketches, notes, design ideas and homework. The homework you turn in each week must be a xerox or carbon copy of that in the design notebook. Every page in the notebook must be numbered at the beginning of the term. No pages can be removed and each page must be dated and initialed when used. In other words, everything you do on the project is included in the notebook. Each notebook will be collected at the end of the term and graded on the number of "quality entries" it contains. A quality entry is a significant sketch or drawing of some aspect of the design; a listing of functions, ideas, or other features; a table such as morphology or decision matrix; or a page of text. Entries that are unintelligible are not "quality entries". The grading will be:

Homework: Due the Monday following the assignment at the beginning of class (assignment for week 1 is due on Monday, Oct 4). Homework to be turned in consists of xerox copies of the entries in your note book. The sequence of events is that you read the material and do the assignment as part of your record keeping in your design notebook. You turn in a copy of the assignment on Monday and, during your lab on Thursday or Friday you discuss the topics and reach team agreement on the results. Documentation of the consensus becomes part of the team's Product Development File.

Field Test: The field test (design contest) will be held in the 10th week. This will be a double elimination contest. The grading will be solely on how your team places with first place receiving 100% and last place 60%.

Product Development File: This is a team produced file covering the history of the design. Each team will keep a single Product Development File in a loose leaf notebook. This file contains the team agreed to results of each homework assignment. In other words, each team member will do the homework individually in his/her personal notebook, then the team will come to consensus on the assignment and enter this in the Product Development File. Documents that will be assigned as homework and should be in the Product Development File are:

The file is to be maintained by the team in a loose leaf binder. This file, when completed, is effectively a final report. It will be graded on completeness and quality of both the design and the documentation itself.

Team Grading: To make grading of team produced material fair, the team grades will be corrected for each student with a weighting factor. This factor will be developed through each team member's confidential evaluation of all members in the team. Each member of the team will evaluate every member of the team (including themselves) for the percent of his/her contribution to the project. The evaluations will be averaged by the faculty to find each student's contribution and the weighting factor made proportional to it. If there are, for example, three students in a team and all the team members feel that each made the same contribution (33%), then all will get the same grade. However, if the average rating shows that one makes a 40% contribution, one a 25% contribution and the third a 35% contribution then the grades will be corrected by the difference from 33%. Thus, if the team grade on the Product Development File, for example, was 85% then the first student would get 92% (85+(40-33)), the second would get 77% (85+(25-33)) and the third 87%.

Schedule:

Week 1 9/27 - 10/1
Topics Covered:
Other Goals:
Reading: Chapters 1, 2 and 6
Assignment:
Lab: Resume writing
Week 2 10/4 - 10/8
Topics Covered:
Other goals: Form teams
Reading: Chapters 3 and 7
Assignment: Documents 1 - 7, Personality Type Exercise
Lab: Human Problem Solving
Week 3 10/11 - 10/15
Topics Covered:
Reading: Chapters 8 and 9
Assignment: Documents 8 - 14
Lab: Kit handout
Week 4 10/18 - 10/22
Topics Covered:
Reading: Chapters 4, 5 and 10
Assignment: 15-20 (Concept prototype due in lab)
Lab: Project work
Week 5 10/25 - 10/29
Topics Covered: Product Generation
Reading: Chapter 11 and 12
Assignment: Documents 21 - 24
Lab: motors and gears
Week 6 11/1 - 11/5
Topics Covered:
Reading: Chapter 13
Assignment: 25 - 29
Lab: AutoCAD demo
Week 7 11/8 - 11/12
Topics Covered:
Other Goals: Approval to start building product
Reading: Chapter 14
Assignment: 30 - 33 (These assignments are done by the team and do not appear in the design notebooks)
Lab: Lathe Demo
Week 8 11/15 - 11/19
Topics Covered: Product Evaluation
Other Goals:
Reading: none
Assignment and lab: Build product
Week 9 11/22 - 11/24 (Thanksgiving)
Topics Covered: Product Evaluation
Other Goals:
Reading: none
Assignment and lab: Build product
Week 10 11/29 - 12/3
Topics Covered:
Reading: none
Assignment:
Lab: clean up shop
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