MEAM.Design - MEAM 101 - DISSECT

Project Organization Tips

This project is going to fine tune your SolidWorks skills, hopefully give you some insights into how others solve mechanical-design challenges, and it is definitely going to tax your organizational talents. Here are some tips to keep things moving along smoothly:

  • use PDM
  • establish a part/file naming convention including a UNIQUE identifier, and stick to it
  • think in terms of subassemblies
  • establish a mating convention
  • consider the creation of a google docs spreadsheet to track the parts of your object (number, filename, mating parts, subassembly, who's responsible, etc.)
  • when you begin dissection, do so in a careful and controlled manner, and it is highly recommended that you photograph and label parts as you go


Team Formation
(in lab on Thursday, February 26th)

You will be working in a group of three or four. Teams should all be established before the end of lab on Thursday, February 26th, with names added here


Object Approval
(by noon on Monday, March 2nd)

Your team must submit a post to Piazza before noon on Monday, March 2nd identifying the object that you plan to dissect. Your post title should include your team number, and your section TA will approve or discuss the selection with you. Note that the object must have sufficient internal complexity to merit dissection.


Individual Renderings
(due by noon on Tuesday, March 17th)

By now, everyone in your group should have modeled at least one interesting part. Each of you must now create a high-quality (1600x900 JPG, "best" quality) PhotoView rendering of the most interesting part (or subassembly) that you have created. Make it beautiful. Name the file as 101-DISSECT-RENDER-X-PennKey.JPG (where X is your team number and PennKey corresponds to the part of your email address before the @ sign), and upload it to the Canvas assignment.


Assembly Submission
(due by noon on Tuesday, March 24th 31st)

We will extract your full assembly from your team's PDM folder, so you need to make sure that it is all there before the deadline.


Exploded View or Animation
(due by noon on Tuesday, March 24th 31st)

You can either:

a) Create a beautiful 11x17-inch exploded-view poster of your dissected object

or

b) Create an explosion animation video of your dissected object.



(image credit: http://madspeitersen.deviantart.com/)