Hey guys! Thank you for joining me once again. I hope all of you are enjoying the Olympics, the athletics has been crazy so far. Tune in to some world-class running if you can’t be bothered studying 👀 maybe you’ll be inspired, who knows!
In this blog, I’m going to be covering my courses in semester one and my thoughts and opinions on how Part II has been so far. Hopefully, this will give you some insight on what mechanical has to offer as I know it’s sometimes unclear on what each specialisation entails. We actually share all four courses with Mechatronics in first sem so I’m sure Phyllis (your Part II tron blogger) will probably cover these as well. ANYWAY, I might as well save words and get straight into it!!
MECHENG 242 – Mechanics of Materials
NOW FIRST OF ALL, this course is a combination of ENGGEN 121 and CHEMMAT 121 AND 121 + 121 = 242. Apparently, that’s a complete coincidence so that’s kinda cool 😂 Anyway, so like I said, 242 combines concepts from the 121’s in first year. It starts off with a lot of stress-strain concepts, a lot of which you’ll be familiar with already, but then it integrates this into statics concepts. The whole course is centred around how materials deform (hence the name of the course is Mechanics of Materials). Essentially, beams can bend and twist and shear and buckle and you’ll learn about a variety of ways to analyse these modes of failure, concepts that are very important in the engineering world.
Some random stuff!! ⬇️
MECHENG 235 – Design and Manufacture I
This course is ENGGEN 115 on steroids pretty much. Instead of being told to make something out of cardboard that can support an elephant or whatever, you’re given a detailed 15 page brief and thrown in the deep end. I know I’ve convinced you all to choose mechanical now 😬 OK I PROMISE THIS COURSE IS DIFFERENT TO 115. Firstly, it is pretty much entirely project based. At least for me, the first project was 5 weeks and the second one was 7. The Warman Project focused on concept design and is more open to creativity and innovation. The second project, The Gear Reducer Project, focused on detailed design and verification, so a lot of calculations, choosing components from catalogues and CAD obviously.
Now you might be like me, in that you didn’t enjoy 115. 115 was my worst grade in first year by two whole grades. 235 was a different story. I actually found a lot of enjoyment in the design process and getting better at CAD was soooo satisfying. And as a bonus, I ended up doing way better in 235, I think like 20% higher than in 115 😆 so I guess it shows that one paper doesn’t define you.
Here are some renderings of my final design for the Gear Reducer Project! ⬇️
ENGSCI 211 – Mathematical Modelling II
Ahhh MM2, this course has a similar feel to 111, as expected. All engineers do this paper so it’s certainly not mech specific. You’ll be doing this paper regardless so good luck I guess 🫡 Nah, I guess if you’re interested, the topics for MM2 are ODE’s, Multivariable calculus, Data Analysis and Linear Algebra. The biggest difference to MM1 is definitely data analysis. If you didn’t do stats in high school (like me), then this will seem strange 😶
MECHENG 201 – Introduction to Mechatronics
The first half of this paper is all about Vex robotics. Make sure you pay attention in 131 cause yes, you will have to code again 😂but you’ll be fine, coding is certainly not my strong point and 201 was manageable for sure. There are two Vex projects, where you will be writing functions to guide a robot around a mat, using a number of sensors. Now I know this sounds cool, it is, but to make it even better, this part of the course is taught by none other than HAZIM NAMIK!!!!!
The video on the left is from the Vex projects! Here, we’re experimenting with our line-following function but we still had a long way to go at this point!
The second half of the course is where the mechatronics really comes in, a lot of electrical components including sensors, actuators, transistors, diodes, op-amps and heaps more.
Please let me know if you have any questions about these courses or anything about what mechanical is like in second year. There is a comment’s section at the bottom of all of these posts so feel free to ask there, and of course you’re welcome to ask in person as well. I’m happy to chat!
See you next time and happy running!
Rohan