MEC2402: Engineering Design I

Note: This changes year to year.
- Online quizzes before each Lecture: 8%
- Worksheets each lecture: 8%
- Weekly CAD Tasks (x8): 8%
- CAD Exam: 6%
- Warman Prelim Submission: 10%
- Warman Competition Results: 12%
- Warman Final Submission: 18 %
- Exam: 30%

There are a lot of aspects to Design I which I'll try and go over individually, but in short Design I will take most of your time throughout the semester, it's a workload heavy unit (especially the Warman Competition), but you gain a lot of experience and get a lot out of it.

Flipped Classroom Model
I'll start off with the way lectures were run. This year was the first year that the Engineering Faculty have tried the flipped classroom model, and it make be used for other units in the future if they think it was beneficial this semester. Basically, there are small videos put up before each lecture, ranging from 10 minutes to say about 40 minutes, which you watch and learn about the content and theory side of things. Before the lecture, which is now called a Workshop, you would then complete an online quiz about the videos, they're quite easy and are there to make sure you've watched the videos beforehand. Then in the Workshop (lecture), you come in and as a lecture and/or with your Warman Competition group (more on that later), you work through the worksheet, getting tips and help from the lecturer and tutors at the same time. These are then marked in the tutorial the week later. Overall, I think this was a good way to go, at least for design. It's one of those units where the lectures would be quite dry if it were run like a normal unit, but having the workshops allowed you to put into practice and try things out, while having the lecturers and tutors there to guide you along. It seems to fit the unit particularly well.

THE WARMAN COMPETITION
This really does deserve the capitals above. It will really take up a lot of your time and effort outside of uni. The Warman Design and Build competition is a competition in which teams from across the country design and build a robot like device to navigate a certain course and achieve certain goals. The track and objective changes year to year, and for design a campus competition is run just for the unit. The winners of the competition go on to represent Monash at the National Finals.

This year, we didn't get to pick our teams. Normally it's in teams of, but the difficulty of the competition was ramped up this year, as most teams found it too easy to navigate the course at the national finals. As a result for the campus competition, we had teams of 8, but unlike most years had to build two devices. To give you an idea of what kinds of things you'll have to do, here is the National Competition from the year before:

Scott Wordley

Yes, Most exams bar one back to 2006, only the last year or two were indicative of the actual exam.

4.5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

1. Field, B. Introduction to Engineering Design (any edition)
2. SAA/Inst of Engineers, Australia: Engineering Drawing Handbook, SAA HB7, 1993.The former is a must have, you'll use it a lot, the latter you'll use too but not as much.

2*1 hr Lectures (Workshops), 3 hr Comp Lab, 2 hr Tutorial

Semester 1 2014

Pending

-Computer Labs, Tutorial work and Design Assignments: 60%
-Examination (3 hours): 40%

Feel like doing a unit with an equivalent work load of 2? Well look no further, to some people this unit may even have a work load of 3 units worth. From week 1 you were given the Warman competition assignment, which is to design, draw, do calculations and build a working prototype to navigate a course while carrying an object within 5 weeks and the final product completed and ready for testing on week 6. Straight after this assignment, you are given another assignment, which is to simply design something, in my case a UAV Launcher. It may sound easy but the amount of calculation and CAD work you have to do is quite insane. Thankfully its a group work so be sure to find people who are committed and willing to spend hours on this unit. During the assignment 2, there will be tutorials on different drawings and computer CAD task which takes a long time to complete. In my opinion, they packed too much content in this unit, I genuinely felt like I was doing 3 units worth.

The Warman task was quite ridiculous since the time frame they give you is way too short, the actual competition starts in September so I don't understand why Monash wanted to finish the competition so early. However Monash do pick one group to represent in the national competition and from what I've heard, there are plenty of scouts in the national competition so doing well in it can land you some job/internship offers. Overall this unit was quite fun, if they reduce the work load by a bit I'd say this unit deserves at 4.5/5.

PS NEVER GO FULL MECHANICAL, THAT BONUS 1 MARK IS NOT WORTH ALL DEPRESSED FEELING AND HOURS OF EXTRA WORK ON SOMETHING THAT WILL NOT WORK GIVEN THE TIME FRAME

Scott Wordley

Yes, 5+ on moodle and 1 with solution

3.5 Out of 5

None, only lecture notes were uploaded

-Australian Engineering Drawing Handbook. SAA/IEAust. (EDH) (recommended)
-Introduction to Engineering Design. B. W. Field. (required)
(Both can be taken into the exam)

-2 x 1hours lectures
-3 hours laboratory/tutorial classes
-10 hours of private study per week during the Warman Competition and 3-4 hours during Assignment 2

Semester 1, 2013

73 D