A decision early on in planning my work for this module was to include where possible some hands-on experience using some 3D printing equipment, which was implemented during my case study for OSET Bikes Ltd. This was an enjoyable task and was good to take a break from writing about these techniques and actually apply them in person. It was useful to apply these practical skills to the submission, despite my lack of formal training and limited experience with the equipment. I feel this will provide a good benchmark and will be interesting to compare to 3D printed practical work later on in the course, to show some skills progression.

A mistake I quickly fell into when writing the submission for the LG1 module, was ‘regurgitating’ facts, without analysing or being critical or them. On reflection, I believe this stemmed from a lack of clarity on my part, of the intended audience of this report. My intention was to create a visual report suitable for a newcomer to the topic, but with some general engineering and/or design experience. It was later clarified that my audience is predominantly those who are assessing it and therefore the content should be tailored for a greater level of engineering education. This was a mistake on my part and I believe a simple fix for future submissions, by clarifying the finer details of a submission with course staff at the start of a module, before producing a first draft.

Upon beginning my research, I was immediately struck by the lack of books or documentation available in the universities library on the subject, which is perhaps to be expected considering the relatively short time that AM has been considered in academic purposes. That being said, access to the majority of scientific and engineering journals through the academic licenses proved to be a useful resource. 

Much of my research came from publicly available articles and publications, a very useful example was the UK advisory group AMUK. The organisation have released many publications, full of useful insights, quotes and further reading references.

I found the informal, ad-hoc meetings with course staff to suit my self-guided studying style and were very useful. My part-time studying has to fit around my work schedule, so the lack of compulsory lectures or scheduled seminars suited my situation perfectly well, allowing my study hours to be flexible. I feel the process of only arranging a meeting with course staff when I have compiled research or discussion points before-hand to work well, resulting in fewer but far more productive discussions. 

Something that I should improve for future modules would be more formalised note taking and to ensure progress against the outlined action points are met between each session. Whilst the notes I have are perfectly useful, it would be better to track who makes each suggestion or comment, when it was made and if it was followed up before the subsequent meeting. This also ties into the lack of reflective blog posts I have made so far, something which should be improved immediately.