One of the courses required for mechanical engineers at UC Davis is EME 50: Manufacturing Processes. This is possibly one of the most fun classes offered at Davis PERIOD! In class we learn about the different manufacturing processes that are available to engineers. We went over a large range of processes from milling to laser cutting and learned to calculate chip loads, material removal rates and other cool things. Doesn't this class already sound like fun? It gets even better! There is a lab portion of EME 50 where we ago to the Engineering Fabrication Lab (EFL) and learn how to use Mills, Lathes, and Drill Presses (among other cool tools). One of the projects that we manufacture is a gyroscope. At the end of the quarter there is a "Gyro Spin Off" and the winner of each section wins a special plasma cut stand. It was really a lot of fun.
Today I was looking through my Solidworks files from my ENG004 class and found the Gyroscope assembly assignment! We had to model each part of the gyroscope in Solidworks based on specifications little did we know we would be manufacturing it later in EME50!
The gyroscope is composed of two sub assemblies. On the left side is the frame and on the right side is rotor/spindle assembly.
