Project reflection:
For this project, I was asked to design a gasket for a piece provided by the professor. After carefully measuring with a caliper every single detail of the piece in question, I proceeded to design it using CAD so I could later machine it.
The project proved challenging because I had very limited experience using a caliper for measuring, and the added pressure of knowing you don’t have access to the piece made me more nervous at the time. I now know that I took way more measurements than needed and that I was able to create my CAD design without using all of them, which made me realize that as an engineer we can facilitate our job by focusing more only on the essential things (when it is safe to do so).
Machining the part was quite fun and less challenging than I thought it would be. One thing that I love is hands-on work, so I had a great time throughout the whole process.
What I would change:
I definitely need to practice more and learn how to properly measure with a caliper. Even though my gasket was successfully machined, it didn’t fit properly into the piece provided by the professor. This was because I made some mistakes when measuring, so the open rectangles in the center of the gasket don’t align properly with the metal piece, as they are off by a couple of millimeters. The same happened with the chamfered corners. I knew I had to add a 45º chamfer, however I didn’t measure the length and I accidentally made it bigger than it was supposed to, which also caused it to not match the piece.