Background
1. During the first meeting of the class, student teams will be created within the constraints imposed by the course registration format: thus each faculty member will be assigned 12 students as per the one-Design-Group format of the ME Department Teaching Schedule. Student teams will be formed with diversity: namely, teams with creative, analytical, computational and machine-shop skills. Group projects will be assigned using the ranking of the projects by the students.
2. Student teams shall have until 12 noon on the day following the first class session to evaluate and rank order the projects. The number one should be assigned to the most desirable project; number two to the next most desirable project etc. All projects should be evaluated and a decision matrix developed with weighting factors and evaluative criteria. This matrix shall be submitted to Professor Thompson. In addition, a one-page description of why you believe that your team is uniquely qualified to work on your number-one choice should also be submitted with the document ranking the different projects. Additional one-page descriptions of your second-choice project, your third-choice project and your fourth and fifth are also required. These documents should be submitted to the mailbox, or office, of Professor Thompson, Room 2450A EB.
Results of the project selection process and the assignment of Faculty Advisors shall be posted on the notice board outside Room 2450 EB during the following afternoon.
3. Students will meet with their Faculty Advisor each week so that the faculty member can provide advice and monitor progress. Naturally the teams will need to schedule other hours for meetings in the Design Resource Center, EB 1240 EB, the Undergraduate Center for Design Innovation, room EB 1252, in addition to individual studies.
4. The team should contact their assigned Faculty Advisor to establish the times of weekly meetings. The registration format for ME481 ensures that all students will be available to meet at the times specified in the MSU book entitled, Schedule of Courses. When students leave the first lecture they will have all the information that they need to start their project. Of course they will not know which project they have been assigned to or their Faculty Advisor. This information shall be posted on the Design Notice-Board beside Room 2450 EB.
5. Student teams should be effectively networked via e-mail and telephone. One person should assume responsibility for contacting the Faculty Advisor and establishing appropriate times for the weekly team meetings. That person should then advise the other members of the arrangements.
6. Students will employ design notebooks to record all information pertaining to their project. These books shall contain sketches, telephone numbers, analyses, the names of industrial contacts, brief notes from group meetings, etc. Notebooks shall be sewn books of size approximately 10" by 7". They shall be submitted to their Faculty Advisor for evaluation at the same time as the Final Reports are submitted to the Course Coordinator.
7. Each student team shall begin the semester with access to funds totaling $700. These funds shall be supervised for accounting purposes by Mrs Jill Bielawski who is located in the Mechanical Engineering Department's Satellite Office in Room A104 Engineering Research Complex. Mrs Bielawski (tel. 353-8133 & E-mail address bielawsk@me.msu.edu) is also the resident expert on university procedures and paperwork to perform the numerous tasks associated with this course. Her fax number is 353-7179. It is imperative to appreciate that Mrs Bielawski works from 8:00am each day to 12:00 noon.
Routine requests for financial reimbursement shall also be processed by Mrs Bielawski. Students are required to monitor their team budget on the first day of each month, and more frequently when numerous expenditures are being billed. If a group wishes to spend more than $700, then there will need to be discussions between the Industrial Sponsor and the Course Coordinator.
8. Team project funds can be employed to lease a vehicle (a car or a minivan) to visit the industrial sponsor, to purchase materials for fabricating parts, etc.. Team members are expected to travel together in a single vehicle on plant trips. Two options of vehicle leasing are available: the MSU vehicle pool and Enterprise Rent-A-Car . Alternatively the team can use a vehicle owned by a student and MSU will reimburse the mileage at a rate of $0.48/mile. The geographical location of the industrial sponsor will determine which option is most economical. MSU charges $13 a day plus $0.36 per mile when leasing a full-size vehicle. Enterprise charges a flat fee of $49.00 per day with unlimited mileage and you need to return the vehicle to them with the gas tank filled to the same state it was in when you collected the vehicle. Depending on the vehicular insurance coverage of the driver, a team might be required to pay an additional fee of $10.95 to ensure adequate comprehensive insurance coverage. Enterprise offer a door-to-door service and they can be contacted at 517-374-2880. Their Lansing Central Office is located at 2311 East Michigan Avenue . The Okemos Office of this company shall not be used. Jill should be contacted in the Mechanical Engineering Department's General Office to initiate either vehicle option. This avoids you paying for the commercial service. We have a direct billing option.
9. Students shall have access to an outside telephone line for conference calls in the Design Resource Center , Room 1240 Engineering Building , and a fax machine (517-353-1750) in the Mechanical Engineering Department's General Office, Room 2555 EB. The telephone line in the Design Resource Center is activated using a special team-specific calling code that available upon request from Ms Elaine Bailey who is located in the Department's Main Office. Room 2555 EB This will permit easy access to Industrial Sponsors and other contacts associated with the ME481 experience.
10. A student-operated machine shop in Room 1252 Engineering Building in the Undergraduate Center for Design Innovation is accessible for the fabrication of prototypes. Furthermore students have access to the College of Engineering 's machine shop in EB 250 but they must arrange for supervision with Roy Bailiff. Student supervision and advice is provided by technician, Roy Bailiff (tel. 355-5131, e-mail bailiff@msu.edu).
11. The Undergraduate Center for Design Innovation contains numerous catalogues of vendor-supplied products and also many reference books on design practices. These books can be loaned by students upon interacting with one of the Design TAs. Design reference books are also listed at the web site http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/me481 . Software packages can be accessed to perform finite element analyses, design-for-manufacture and design-for-assembly investigations, selecting materials subject to numerous constraints (The Cambridge Engineering Selector package) and the static and dynamic simulation of mechanical systems. (Working Model package)
12. Students can borrow a laptop computer to practice their conference presentation during the week of the Student Design Conference. The Undergraduate Center for Design Innovation shall be available during the three days before the Conference for this purpose. The Faculty Advisor can acquire the computer from the Course Coordinator upon signature of documentation.
13. Students shall purchase and use safety glasses in the machine shops at all times.
14. Each team shall have access to a multiple-access computer directory provided by DECS. This dedicated directory will facilitate productivity through the provision of a common database.
15. Students shall not request the copying of reports at local copying centers like Kinkos. It is less costly to generate copies in the Mechanical Engineering Department.
16. The Division of Computing Services (DECS) in the College of Engineering will provide each student team with a shared directory. This multiple-access directory facilitates report writing and provides the central storage repository for all information. Fred Hall will be the contact person for this.(‘phones 355-3816 or 432-4135 or hall@msu.edu)
17.Students or student teams shall not be reimbursed for meals from their project budget, even if they are accompanied by their Industrial Advisor(s). Thus meals shall be paid using the students' personal sources of finance.
18. Teams wishing to use the conference-call telephonic equipment in the Industrial Projects Laboratory should contact Ms. Elaine Bailey (bailey3@msu.edu or 355-5131) in the Mechanical Engineering Department's Main Office to reserve the equipment several days before the call is planned.
19. Teams shall ALWAYS dress professionally when visiting an Industrial Sponsor. This protocol shall be adopted even if the sponsor has an informal dress code.
20.On Design Day, each student team is responsible for dismantling their display and hauling it away after the event. Roy Bailiff is available to provide assistance with ultra-heavy items and Craig Gunn is always keen to collect posters, so please contact them for assistance.
21. Each team shall return to their Industrial Advisor before the end of Finals Week any equipment that was borrowed from the sponsor. Failure to comply with this regulation shall trigger a 1.0 reduction in the final grade assigned to each student. Thus a grade of 3.0 shall be reduced to 2.0.
The course is focused upon integrated product-and-process design through a design-build-test philosophy. At the end of the semester the students will present their ideas, and demonstrate their working prototypes to an audience of industrialists, students, faculty, families and friends. This will occur in the MSU Student Union Building on the last day of classes.
This goal will be reached through the following steps:-
1. define the problem
2. create numerous potential solutions
3. evaluate these solutions
4. select the solution with the highest potential for success
5. analyze this solution
6. develop plans for creating/acquiring the parts
7. manufacture and test the prototype
8.develop the final report and oral presentation
These steps are not chiseled in granite. The process is iterative, involving creativity, analysis and evaluation.
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat........"
Winston S. Churchill (1874 - 1965) House of Commons, London , 13 May 1940
