Course Details

General:

ME 188 is a group project orientated design class with the design problem coming directly from industry. The industry supply the design challenge and interact with the faculty and the design group to develop an improved product.

Class Meetings:

The class meeting time will consist primarily of progress reports from the project groups. Your attendance is mandatory at these progress meetings. The meetings begin with a short presentation by one of the faculty on a general design concept relevant to the projects. Concepts covered will include project specification, idea generation, design refinement, tests and measurements, client interactions, and design presentation. The major portion of each class period is spent on each project in turn, following a formal agenda. The agenda and the minutes are the responsibility of the project groups (the recording duties rotate among the members), but a typical agenda will include:

  • Announcements
  • Progress on action items from previous week
  • Further needs and next steps
  • Update timeline
  • Assignments for coming week

Meetings run between an hour and an hour and a half. The meeting should follow approximately the agenda, with a clear indication of who is signed up to do what for the upcoming week.

Requirements of the Course:

Time -each student is expected to spend at least 12 hours per week earning the 4 units awarded by this course. Of these 12 hourse, 4 are to be spent at the company site or interacting with company representatives and 4 more hours are to be spent during the working hours of 8–5, M–F in order to ensure adequate contact with vendors and other working professionals. The final 4 hours includes the 1 hour formal class time, and 3 flexible hours. Students are required to schedule meetings for faculty assistance whenever called for by the timely execution of their projects.

Binder -each group has a project binder that contains all of the project information. It is divided into sections to assist the inclusion of all appropriate material. The binder is a running record of the project and must be kept up-to-date. Each week, by 2:00 on the day preceding the progress meeting, the 2 binder, the agenda for the coming week’s meeting, and the minutes for the past week’s meeting must be turned in for review.

Assignments -each group member will be given an assignment (or action item). The completion of this sequence of assignments represents the member’s contribution to the project. Performance on these assignments constitutes an important part of the individual grades.

Presentations -each group will make 2 presentations, one at the midterm design review and one at the final design review (during finals week). Every group member must participate in these presentations, and each member should present their contribution.
Reports -a single final report is required of each group. Along with the report, each group should submit a brief description of each member’s contribution to the report.

Attendance -attendance at the weekly project review class meetings is required of all group members and interaction with company representatives is required of all group members.

Grading:

Grades are assigned individually based on: (a) attendance and participation at the weekly project reviews [10%], (b) performance on weekly tasks assigned [30%], (c) midterm review performance [20%], (d) final presentation [20%], (e) company interaction [15%], and (f) group interaction [5%].