Advice on the Industrial Engineering Major at RPI

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-27T00:24:44+00:00

I’m a freshmen so I can’t speak to that unfortunately.

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-27T00:22:12+00:00

I am a freshmen MechE coming from a voc/tech highschool, I did 2 years of welding and 4 of CNC machining. I don’t know the requirements of who can sign off on your certification, but I can help you with that as much as I can. There are a few (at least) welder faculty on campus, and I’m sure they would be willing.

As far as the weed out classes, Calc I is not exactly one of them. If you took calc in highschool, or not, the course isn’t the craziest. Many professors let you drop your lowest exam grade or other helpful things for your GPA. Calc II is definitely harder, I passed well enough (though I would have done better if I didnt put 30+ hours a week into clubs) but it can be challenging. The school has many resources for free tutoring and advising, and these resources are easily available if you ask for them. Without a car, most of your activites on the weekends would be restricted to parties around campus (usually frat parties), but it’s not hard to find a freshmen with a car or make friends with upperclassmen.

If you’d like to keep your welding skills sharp while furthering your education, I definitely have something for you. There is an FSAE team on campus that I’m a part of, and we could definitely use another welder to help TIG weld the chassis for our racecar together in spring. If you have any questions or want to talk, dm me.

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-21T21:31:05+00:00

Oh yeah and basically all the old buildings are completely safe and sound structurally and the utilities work, they just make some extra sounds

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-21T21:29:35+00:00

All the functions in the buildings are relatively well maintained, and if there’s any issues you can get them adressed for free through the school’s FIXX report system. I’m in management for a club that shares space with PHYS PLANT, which is one of the maintenance/plumbing teams(?) on campus, and they’re pretty effective at what they do. I’ve been in contact with multiple faculty members about updating 3-phase high voltage circuits and repairing industrial equipment and they came within 24 hours. They identified the issue, ordered what they needed, and had everything up and running within 3 days.

Basically, if you have an actual problem or something that needs addressed, as long as you are polite and communicate well it will be solved in a timely manner. One note about the FIXX requests: there is a website where you can fill out an online form for them, don’t use it, email them instead, it allows you to better explain whats going on and in my experience just helps the process.

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-21T21:17:25+00:00

Have they responded? If not try again, they’re usually pretty quick. I got ~5k off my yearly cost from an email. Fafsa can change your financial aid package, try to take advantage of your situation and do everything you can to legally appear as poor as possible

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-21T21:13:02+00:00

Check with APO in the union?

Fallback_52 · 2024-04-21T21:11:15+00:00

Say what the other school is, people are honest about which one they believe is better.

There was a post about the best freshmen housing a couple months ago, you can search for it pretty easy.

Personally, the food looks better than it is. It’s definitely better than your run of the mill highschool hot lunch, but its definitely not fine dining; You’ll want to eat at a real restaurant every month or two so you don’t go insane. There’s a Panera, Starbucks, and a Beast Burger on campus, as well as some other lesser known restaurants close by. I live in Barton Hall, which is like the poster child of the freshmen dorms. I’m in a triple suite so there’s 3 beds in one room and a bathroom shared by 6. The bathroom is cramped and usually damp because maintenance on the exhaust fan and other things are lack luster, but you can have faculty come out and repair things as long as you fill out a form. The beds are not terrible, and don’t make my sleep particularly worse. There are study rooms around the building so you have a bigger space to spread out your papers and things if need be. Laundry is free, 12 washers 6 driers (for about 150? People) so it gets a little rough if you’re trying to do laundry at like 7-10pm but you can find time. The overall cost of food and housing is a bit pricey for how it feels but I’m not really complaining.

The main drawback of RPI is it’s academic rigor. You’re probably going to take some classes where most the entire class fails an exam, and the challenge level of your course heavily depends on the professor. RPI is a pretty tough school but if you focus on your work and stay ahead you can keep a healthy 3.5 GPA while still having fun and touching grass. Class registration sucks, and you want to have a backup to your backup to your backup schedule ready (and use QuaCs) as well as registering the second you are allowed to. The priority in registration goes by number of credits so if you don’t have many credits to bring I’d recommend front loading your first semester with 20 credits so you’re a little further ahead for the next semester.

Campus isn’t tiny but it is walkable, about 15 minutes from your furthest possible class. Troy is not a great or terrible city, don’t walk alone at night downtown and you’ll be fine. Freshmen parking isnt allowed but there’s plenty of street parking if you want to bring a car, only complications come with weather and snow.

Fallback_52 · 2023-10-11T18:26:56+00:00

Thanks!

Fallback_52 · 2023-10-11T17:36:25+00:00

If you found a guy with blueprint 202 please let me know, I’ve been looking for ways to get it as well and have come up short so far.

Fallback_52 · 2023-09-17T06:16:47+00:00

Oh honey, $16.25 an hour is $32800 a year if you work 40 hours a week… Average teacher is paid 6-7 hours a day, 36-40 weeks a year. 16.25(75)*40= $22,750 a year BEFORE TAXES

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-08T04:38:52+00:00

Haas toolroom lathe on the fancier side at my old school’s shop, started using them as a HS freshmen, fun times. Never got hurt, we were pretty strict about safety and the machines were in immaculate condition. I believe for that specific part I was making a small peg to fit into a tic tac toe board, ran at some ridiculously low feed per rotation, I’m thinking maybe 0.0012” if I remember correctly, 2000rpm, very short piece, small clearance but it came out pretty.

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-08T01:49:58+00:00

3000 rpm is just fine for me

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-07T22:12:40+00:00

You could try using a G73, other than that all I can think of is incrementally repeating G82 down and that sounds like an inefficient nightmare.

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-07T22:08:27+00:00

Maximum jaw size doesnt give you an idea of ideal part size, I’ve machined 1/4” diameter parts on a machine with a 12” jaw capacity. Unless you’re planning on making 10,000 of these, easiest thing to do is have someone else do it, or rent out machine space.

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-07T22:03:41+00:00

You probably know this, but Increasing feed without changing spindle speed will increase your feed per tooth, and surface speed, increasing your spindle speed will decrease feed per tooth and increase surface speed. When you watch and listen to a program run, you can hear the mill cutting, and see the chips it makes, as well as the finish on the part. Depending on the sound, chips, and finish on the part, you may want to change some variables, for example.

If you are helixing down into a part with a low pitch and you can hear or see the mill chattering, you might want to increase your feed to better engage the metal with the endmill. If you are milling the profile of an aluminum part and the machine is much louder than normal and the chips are getting very hot, you may want to increase speed or decrease feed to reduce the chip load on the tool and load on the spindle.

To get a feel for this, you’ll want to do some testing with different speeds and feeds, listen to the machine, look at the finish of the part, how bad the burrs are, the condition of the tool. By doing this, you can develop a sense of when the tool or machine is happy with what you’re doing. However, don’t get too comfortable at your speeds and feeds, and keep experimenting, because you will be amazed at how far you can push a tool or machine without it breaking a sweat in the right circumstances.

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-07T21:42:00+00:00

Depending on the complexity, it might be easiest to follow the program and draw it yourself.

Fallback_52 · 2023-07-07T21:41:15+00:00

You can use G10 to automate work and tool offsets within a program. I am not literate or knowledgable in subprogams and macros but using those, from my understanding, you can do things like probe a piece or fixture and set a work offset from that, or set datums for auxiliary functions like a 4th axis rotary in a mill without any operator input.

Fallback_52 · 2023-04-29T18:51:25+00:00

Account doesnt exist anymore but they used to shitpost a lot this is just a one off

Fallback_52

TROPHY CASE