ME 213 – Intro to Engineering Design

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Procurement

General Information

  • All purchases must go through the ME Department procurement process (only use the Purchase tab of the Request Form – no reimbursements).
  • All purchases must be pre-approved by your instructor (Dr. Trimble). Do not submit Purchase Request Forms directly to the ME Department Administration. Submit them to Dr. Trimble who will submit them to the ME office for purchase.
  • COMMON ISSUES:
    • The Purchasing/Reimbursement Request form linked below includes two different tabs. One tab for purchase requests and one tab for reimbursement requests. Please be sure to utilize the purchase tab.
    • Purchasing must be itemized (see detailed instructions below).
    • Purchases must include shipping estimates (see detailed instructions below).
    • Purchasing takes several business days just to process so order early and plan ahead.

Purchasing Process:

  1. Fill out the Purchase/Reimbursement Request Form for each purchase (The form is current found on Laulima in the resources folder).
    • Only utilize the “Purchasing” page of the form.
    • Each request must include a request number. The request number should be monotonically increasing for each source of funds accessible to your team. E.g. 1, 2, 3, …
    • Be sure you keep track of and record the correct “starting” balance for each submission. I.e. Your “starting balance” for request “2” should match your “end balance” form request “1”. Occasionally your balance will need to be adjusted to account when the actual shipping or taxes are different than estimated. Your financial officer needs to stay on top of this. Particularly if you get close to your budget limit.
    • Create one line per item to be purchased. Make it as easy on the purchaser as possible by include web links that go direct to the item not just the general vendor website and any other information (color, etc.) necessary.
    • Include a shipping estimate on a separate line (submissions without a shipping estimate will not be approved). Be sure to include in the notes your desired and estimated shipping speed.
    • Include a tax estimate on a separate line (submissions without a tax estimate will not be approved).
  2. Submit the Purchase/Reimbursement Request Form to Dr. Trimble for approval.
    1. Email Dr. Trimble your purchase request using the subject line “ME 213 Purchase Request:  teamname, #). Attached your purchase request to the email.
    2. After reviewing, Dr. Trimble will submit the form to the department who will proceed with the purchase and will contact you if there are any questions on your order.
  3. When you receive the items retain the packing slips and verify receipt of items with the ME Department.
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Safety

Ethics

Design Process, Project Management, etc.

Writing Resources

Teamwork, Team Meetings, Team Contracts, etc.

Oral Communication

  • General Presentation Information
    • Presentation Evaluation Criteria
    • Presentation Grade Sheet
    • Oral Communication Lecture (09 January 2019)
    • COSMOS Sales Pitch Example
    • General information on hardware demonstrations
      • Hardware demonstrations are both the easiest and the most stressful presentations you will do as an engineer.  The hardest part from a communication standpoint is providing context. You usually have hardware in front of you that does something super cool and thus automatically draws the audience’s attention and provides sufficient interest. Thus, you simply need to demonstrate the abilities of the device/design in a way the proves the design fulfills a need relevant to the audience. During the initial part of the design process, we said “if it fulfills this set of functional requirements then it solves the problem”, so natural we just need to demonstrate the functional requirements. However, if the functional requirements weren’t stated in a way that is quantitatively measurable what are we to demonstrate and prove? This is why early on last semester we talk at length about defining your problem (and more importantly your solution) in a way that can be measured to prove you were successful. If you have done that well, then the hardware demonstration becomes easy and fun. Then comes the stress — will the prototype perform as expected during the demonstration? This is often make or break for new products. Reliability becomes key, and reliability is impossible without significant testing. I had an adviser that wouldn’t do a hardware demonstration without 9 successful test trials in a row previous to the actual demonstration. Depending on the situation that might be excessive or it might be insufficient. Either way, the point is you need to test, test, test, … to find and correct all bugs before the demonstration. If the product works as advertised, hardware demonstrations are very rewarding. In general the hardware demonstrations during the semester are there to help you in two ways. One, they are hopefully timed to ensure you are making at least minimum progress on your hardware (you really should be way ahead of this schedule, feel free to demonstrate where you are rather than working backwards). Two, they are intended to help you hone an appropriate demo for your competitions, the Francis Rhodes Montgomery Design Competition, etc.

Links to Additional External Resources

General
www.grabcad.com
www.123dapp.com/circuits (help convert breadboard layouts into printed circuit boards)

Manufacturing Assets Available to Students
See Mechanical Engineering Machine Shop Website
Sources for parts

Mechanical
General Power Transmission Bearings
  • Stock Drive Products
  • Grainger
  • McMaster Carr
  • MSCdirect
  • Breco
  • Fenner Manheim
  • Stock Drive Products
  • Congress Drives
  • Gates
  • Motion Systems
  • Rockford Ball Screws
  • Warner
  • PST
  • Timken
  • Thompson
  • THK
  • Stock Drive Products
  • Grainger
  • McMaster Carr
  • NICE
  • Southwest Products
  • McGill
Plastic Machine Components Linear Motion Systems O-rings/Seals
  • Stock Drive Products
  • Nylomatic
  • Nyliner (Thompson)
  • Star Linear Systems
  • Schneeberger
  • Comptrol
  • Kuroda Jenatec
  • Osher
  • Sonfarrel
  • Stock Drive Products
  • McMaster Carr
Electric/Electronic Components
General Micro Controllers Motion Control
  • Digikey
  • SeaLevel
  • Mouser
  • Adafruit
  • Sparkfun
  • Minarik
  • Schneider Electric
Sensors Motors  
  • Digikey
  • Adafruit
  • Sparkfun
  • SeaLevel
  • Mouser
  •  Clear Path digital servos
  • Motion Industries
  • Technikusa
  • Automationtechnologies
  • Kellinginc
  

Communication (oral and written)

Team Dynamics