College of Creative Studies

Current Course Offerings
Spring 2007

This is the FRIDAY section. Sign up for one section or the other (Wednesday OR Friday - NOT BOTH!)

Prerequisite: Physics 13BH/CS15B or consent of the instructor.

Tools:

1. A pad of paper ruled with + inch squares (either yellow or white will do).

2. A straight edge (a simple plastic ruler with smooth edges will be fine).

3. A compass for drawing circles (even a cheap one is fine).

4. A few pencils.

5. A high quality eraser (one of those white ones).

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the design and construction of scientific apparatus. The focus will be on the mechanical aspect of things. You will learn how to run various metal working machines, including the lathe, drill press, and milling machine, how to solder and braze, what different screw sizes are all about, something of the properties of materials, in short, the rudiments of what you need to know to design things that might actually work. You will also learn how to imagine an object that you want to have constructed, and to draw a few different views of the object in a standard manner that will enable any experienced machinist to make exactly what you had in mind. The ability to make proper mechanical drawings and sketches will also enable you to work directly with a good machinist during the design stage, kicking ideas around on paper.

We will begin by visiting the Physics department machine shops. You will meet Mike Wrocklage who runs the student shop, and Jeff Dutter who is the overall shop supervisor. Mike will be the one who instructs you in the art of machining. During the first week of class, you will need to view the safety video, and schedule 6 hours of instruction to be finished during April. As part of your instruction you will make a device for holding two wires or other objects together in alignment, for example to solder them together. This project has been developed by the shop so that it involves using most of the main tools and machines. If you would like to get more experience after you have done this, I am sure we can find a group that would let you try your hand at something more complicated!

Throughout the Quarter, we will practice proper drafting of mechanical parts. To begin with, I will bring one or two objects to class each week, and you will prepare your drawings right in the lab, where we will also discuss various aspects of materials and design. The drawings will be due by the end of lab each week, and they will be graded and returned to you.

There will also be an opportunity to gain exposure to using a real 3d CAD (Computer Aided Design) program that will let you build parts in 3 dimensions, and then obtain the requisite machine drawings from whichever views you choose.

To put all this new knowledge to work, the class will attempt to design and build a specialized research instrument for one of the campus research groups. This is where the rubber hits the road for this class. Instead of solving homework problems by analyzing this and that situation, we are going to face a completely different kind of thinking. We will need to use whatever we know or can find out about to construct a possible design. This will let you creative types rise to the top! Past classes have designed and built instruments that have proved to be quite useful, and hopefully, we will have just as much success this year!