Category Archives: MECH Coursework

How is it already January? Einstein described the warping of time surrounding massive objects; clocks that appear faster further away from clocks on our planet. Surely, the engineering buildings at UBC produce their own temporal acceleration too.

For skimmers, here’s the briefing of the below paragraphs:

1. I’d suggest joining a maximum of one design team and one professional organization during full time studies.
2. Don’t underestimate the return to school after co-op; MECH3 assignments can sneak up on you.
3. MECH3.5 is an exercise in time management and team dynamics. These factors are complementary and will provide compounding reductions in stress, if appreciated.
4. For those interested in the CIE process starting around 3rd year, check out Kirsten Meng’s excellent post about it.

I meant to provide updates on the MECH3/3.5 experience in real-time, but I’ve repeated the mistake of overloading my plate at this wild undergraduate buffet. For those that enjoy the variety of extracurriculars, it can be a real struggle pacing yourself around UBC’s wide range of options.

MECH3 returns to the traditional semester course schedule students are accustomed to. At first glance it seems to indicate an easier semester for those returning from co-op; there’s a good amount of review at the beginning of term. However, don’t be lulled into a false sense of security (like I was). Without the weekly quizzes and frantic project timelines, I had a slow start to regular studying and homework. My midterm grades were an effective wake-up call, but with only one or two assessments per course, I could’ve had a much easier time ahead of the final had I been more proactive.

Lesson learned – Navvy-stokes and transient heat transfer problems laugh in the face of cramming.

MECH3.5 was a very different beast. Group work has its ups and downs, but it’s so important to develop an awareness of team dynamics and how to massage them to the group’s benefit. I had heard complaints of the unrealistic objectives and lack of prototyping in MECH328, but the opportunity to dig deeper into designing a product made it enjoyable. I also lucked out with the powerhouse team I was assigned (nearly all of them dedicated design team members, hint hint).

I’ll write one more post on study semesters and design teams, then catch up on my current adventures on exchange in Europe. I figure we can talk flights and packing, then the first few days. Spoiler: It’s been *amazing*.

Hello everyone,

It has been a long time since I last updated you about my life as a Mech. I am officially a fourth year student and soon to be graduate. Yay! I can tell you that I am super excited about accomplishing this goal in my life; it has been a long, hard, but overall happy road.

I came to this realization because the other day during an event called the UBC Applied Science Open House. On this day, all the engineering departments at UBC have booths in the Kaiser Building to show high school and first year students what each department has to offer. Every booth had students, professors and staff who talked about the focus of the department, projects and curriculum. We ran great demostrations such as a 1920’s National Gas engine, student teams’ projects, as well as interactive activities for everyone to participate. If you have never attended this event, make sure you come and visit us next time!

As a work learn student in the Mech Student Services office, I helped in the planning and organization of this event. I was also one of the students who volunteered to talk to prospective students, which made me think about the reasons why I chose Mech, and what I have learned over the last few years. One of the most interesting questions prospective students asked me was: “What would be a piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to go into Mech?” This is a big question –it encompasses all these years of hard work, sacrifices and dedication.

After giving it some thought, I can honestly say that studying Mechanical Engineering tests you in almost every level in life; from personal, mental and physical to professional. In order to succeed, you will have to learn to balance studying, with personal, family, and friends time. It sometimes requires sacrifice and dedication, but all of this has been worth it for me because I was able to learn a lot.  If this is really what you want to study, make sure this career motivates and guides you towards your passion in life. If learning about how the world works makes you satisfied and adds to a piece to your puzzle, then you should become a Mechanical Engineering and come to UBC MECH. MECH at UBC will make you learn about yourself, while also learning about cool things in the world, such as how to design a real boat from scratch (Mech 488).

Well, it is almost the end of this term and I getting ready to write my some of my last finals. Feel free to ask me any questions any time at ambassadors@mech.ubc.ca.

Until next time!

Diana Nino

Same place, new voice.

As I read Ashley’s old back-to-school post, I found myself nodding at every word like they were the grains of truth. Indeed, because I’m taking the same courses (minus 2, add another), I feel like I should discuss another very important aspect of back-to-school: how to absorb the most out of my 4^th year of Mechanical Engineering.

(My lovely coworkers from YVR)

(My first tour for Mechanical Engineering Student Services)

First, I should mention I’m coming back from 16 MONTHS of Co-op, where I worked under senior engineers and helped them complete their projects. Why is that important? One word-transitioning. Back-to-school to most of you may be leaving the comforts of the summer sun, but for me, it’s also a call-back to homework, assignment deadlines, and study nights.

So I asked myself, “How do I prepare for this?” How do I take the work ethics and skills that I’ve gained in Co-op and fully utilize them in school? Well, to kick off any good project, you must have visions, so I created visions for this semester:

• Ace my courses (using the work ethics from Co-op!)
• Build a support network (be inspirational and positive like my Co-op supervisors!)
• Learn new things (using the drive from Co-op!)

Then I set down the steps to achieve my visions. For the first one, “acing my courses”, I followed one simple rule: “know what you should be learning”. If there’s anything I learned from Co-op, it is the value of self-directed progress. To elaborate, this means you shouldn’t need your supervisor to check up on you every hour, or even, every day. When I was in Co-op, my supervisor would go on one week vacations! At first I was afraid that the small amount of work would make me slack off, but then I quickly learned that by checking on my own progress every day. For example, I jotted down tasks on the log book and then reviewed their completion by the end of the day, the sense of fulfillment and autonomy I had achieved was much greater than any approval my supervisor could give. How can I apply this to my studies? Get a log book. Know what the learning objectives are for each course. At the end of each week, follow-up with yourself: “how comfortable am I with this material?” If you don’t understand something in lectures, quickly jot it down in a log book so you can review them after class. Take this piece of advice with a grain of salt, but from my Co-op experience, anything you don’t understand can be taught by Google! Aside from that, Co-op taught me the importance of a well-designed work environment to your ability to concentrate and be productive. Half a month before school started, I set-up the most productive work station at my dorm. This includes a good lighting, big desk, dual monitors, printer, and stationary at the ready.

The second vision is not as straight forward. Building a network of inspirational and positive people requires time and energy. When I was still in Co-op, I learned a lot about team-building, and I’m taking it back to school. Like working on a project, you have to be communicative and supportive. Be open and honest about life and you’ll be surprised how strong your connection becomes. When I am in the right mental attitude, I found myself quickly surrounded by people who are giving and generous. These people include team members from student design team, supervisor and coworkers form work-learn, new exchange friends, and first year friends. When you build a solid network, you feel more confident about challenging assignments, quizzes and exams. When you struggle together, the victory is just so much sweeter!

Lastly, I want to talk about how Co-op has motivated me to learn new things. I remember the first day I started working at Vancouver International Airport, I was handed a project scope and told I’ll be running the project. Unexperienced as I was, I quickly learned to reach out to resources (senior coworkers, the YVR intranet) and to learn from past projects (for permits, specifications, etc). With that strategy, I was able to accomplish new tasks and in the end, successfully finishing the project at YVR. This semester, I’m planning to or have already reached out to friends with more experience to learn new skills like graphic design, event photography, and 3D scanning.

So there you go! That is how Co-op could actually make your transition back to school so much easier. More importantly, my Co-op experience has had a positive effect on my ability to absorb my fourth year in UBC Mechanical Engineering!

Since I am preparing myself for a semester abroad (in DENMARK), I will be writing about that in my next blog! Let me know if there’s any subject in particular you would like to hear about. And of course, email me if you wish to connect!

Let’s own this semester together,

Kirsten

I am very excited about reading break. I look forward to sleep and taking a well-deserved rest. So far this week has been great, but tomorrow is my first Mechanical Engineering Lab Tour. For this tour, I will be taking the students to some of our awesome labs:

The Anechoic Chamber: The Anechoic Chamber is a fundamental test facility for acoustical research. It is quite unusual both physically and acoustically.  Its surfaces are made of highly sound absorptive glass-fibre wedges, creating an almost completely sound-reflection-free environment. Currently, the chamber contains two microphone-array acoustical antennas being used to localize sources of sound — in particular, on musical instruments.

MAL (Manufacturing and Automatization Lab): conducts research in the mechanics and dynamics of metal cutting operations, spindle design and analysis, micro-machining, virtual simulation of machining operations and CNC machine tools; design and digital control of high speed feed drives; precision machining, sensor assisted intelligent machining; and chatter stability of cutting processes. The academic articles published out of this lab receive the highest citation in the world in the field of manufacturing.

Although I consider myself a pretty “easy to talk to” type of person, I have to admit my strength isn’t necessarily public speaking. So, even though I am a bit scared, I am excited for this opportunity because I have the chance to learn something new and take on a challenge. I know it will be a good tour – I should know, I prepared all the logistics of the tour to make sure it is a success.

If you are interested in attending one of our future lab tours send an email to: studentassistant@mech.ubc.ca to save a spot. Our next tour will be on March 24^th from 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, and includes an academic advising session.

Once this tour is over, I am going to relax for a week. . . because the week after my life is going to be crazy! I have three midterms and two assignments during that week. But wait there is more… I will also be the MC for the Women in Engineering Networking Event, for WiSE 2017! This a yearly event for which I am also the chair this year. WiSE 2017 is an amazing opportunity for female students to network with well experienced female professionals in industry and academia. So as you can see, I really need a couple days off!

See you next time!

Another term has started! This is the first week of classes, and so far things are in line, stress levels are low and Mech students are rested and happy. A common topic these days is: which technical electives should we take as part of 4th year? Mech offers a wide range of technical electives that you can choose from based on your interests. Some examples include: Thermofluids, Biomedical, Mechatronics, Acoustics, Fuel cells, Aerodynamics, etc. You can find more about this in the Mechanical Engineering website. Personally, I like topics related to robotics, manufacturing, solid mechanics and thanks to a great professor I had last term, I think I also like thermodynamics. I have decided to take:

• Mech 491 – Computer-Aided Manufacturing: this course got my attention the very first time I was looking at all the courses in Mech. It aims to teach the theory and applicability of numerical computer programming together with CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided manufacturing) systems. The labs seem okay so far, but from what I have hear from previous students is that the projects take a lot of your time. So more on that later on.
• Mech 495 – Industrial Engineering: Aims to teach you how engineering connects to other fields in the industry, such as management, maintenance, quality control, coding and classification, manufacturing systems, etc. If you ask me, it seems pretty interesting.

I mention the topic of electives because I noticed a lot of my friends have been attending different courses during the first week of classes to determine what subjects they like the most. Their decision making is based on: topics covered, lecture schedule (many students don’t really like 8 am classes) and the prof who is teaching the course. This is something you can do as well once you get to 4th year. This way, you will really choose something you like in every aspect.

I think this term has been interesting. I hope it is full of fun!

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have regarding my life in Mech. Hope you have a good week.

Diana N.

Happy Wednesday all!

So, here we are 3 weeks into the school year. Classes are in full swing, projects and student teams are underway, and midterms are fast approaching. The first two weeks were slow and then it feels like everything started happening all at once this week. How are you all getting along?

This semester, I have 4 courses and capstone for a total of 16 credits. Sad to say, this is probably one of the easiest semesters I’ve had over my entire degree. Plus, it helps that the courses I’m taking this semester are pretty interesting! Do you ever wonder what kind of things mechanical engineers learn in school?

MECH 327: Thermal Design. So far, this course has been a refresher on thermodynamics that we covered in MECH 2 (blog post debunking MECH 2 myths coming soon…). We have talked alot about first law, second law, and cycles. Thermo isn’t my favourite subject, but I’m fortunate enough to have an awesome prof this year teaching the course. Shoutout to Pat Kirchen for being being organized, efficient, and having the neatest notes out of any prof I have ever had.

MECH 329: Materials for Mechanical Design. This class is exactly what it sounds like – learning about the materials needed for engineering design. In all honesty, I was most excited for this course because…well, materials is my jam. However, it has been the most disappointing course this semester so far. I was expecting to learn about the actual material selection process for design (ie: 1010 steel vs 1045) steel but instead, we are learning about the chemistry fundamentals (ionic bonds, covalent bonds, etc… Think CHEM 11 or CHEM 12). So, not super impressed so far but hoping that will change!

ELEC 344: Applied Electronics and Electromechanics AKA your “4th year motors course”. As a not-so-avid fan of electrical, I was not excited about this class. I expected more circuit analysis which we already do alot of in our curriculum. The course started off covering the fundamentals of electromagnetism, which was a nice refresher because I don’t think I’ve touched that stuff since PHYS 153 in first year. I just completed the first lab yesterday and it was analyzing the relationship between the position of a metal plunger within a solenoid and the resulting effects on inductance and electromagnetic force. So far, so far. 10/10 would continue going to lectures and labs.

MECH 463: Vibrations. Springs. So many springs.

MECH 45X: Capstone. MECH has a design project component in every year of your studies which is unique to our department. Capstone is just the 4th year design project and it’s year round. My project this year will be to design circuitry housing for a product called Reveal. All I can say about Capstone and any other design project: what you get out of the project is 100% dependent on how much you put into it.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for a post debunking all the myths about MECH 2…

Until next time,
Ashley