Mechanical Engineering

Assignment Report of Christian Merz
Specialist for CNC, Robotics- and FMS
Polytechnic of Namibia, Windhoek February 4 – April 15, 2011

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This year’s activities were quite different from the two previous assignments. Instead of CNC and Robotics I was mainly engaged with the first module of Engineering Hand Skills for 1st year BTech students. The lecturer who was doing this course before had resigned at the end of the second semester 2010 and since the post for the new lec-turer for this subject had not yet been advertised, a temporary solution was found: Mr. Vernon Chaka, a BTech Graduate of 2009 was employed as a Part Time Lecturer.

I was asked to help plan and prepared the Engineering Hand Skills lecture and at the same time coach Mr. Chaka as a new lecturer.  The previous lecture had left without leaving any information regarding details of the course and I had to start almost from zero. Contrary to my expectation, the course was not in workshop practice. The Course Outlines, the only document which I had to start with, defined Module 1 of the course mainly as a theoretical introduction into Workshop Safety, where as another part was vaguely defined as Assembly Skills.

As I had lectured the subject ,Workshop Safety, more than 25 years ago I decided on lectures based on Power Point Slides and regarding method, I decided to give lectures each week to the first three out of eight groups. Mr. Chaka would assist my lectures and then gave lectures to the other five groups, while I observed his lectures and discussed them later on with him. This gave me the opportunity to point out positive points and areas for improvement. The fact that the same lecture was to be given eight times a week due to the large students number, was lucky. This allowed for a systematic introduction of Mr. Chaka as a lecturer and the development of good course documentation.

Mr. Chaka proved to be the right man for the lecturer post. He has a solid background, has good ideas, shows initiative and has proved that he has all other abilities which are required for a good lecturer. I hope that the formal procedure for the full lecturers post is soon initialized so that he may be employed as a full staff member before the end of the first semester. At the end of my assignment the Power Point Slides for the theoretical course part were complete and the Assembly Exercises seem to be as successful as can be expected under the present circumstances.

My thanks go to the HOD of Mechanical Engineering, Mr. Samuel John and his team of Lecturers and Lab Technicians with whom I had the privilege to work during this third assignment at PON. Thanks also to the team of PC Support Officers of Mr. Derick Fredericks who was always ready to fix things and give valuable advice. Thanks also to Dr. Sylvester. R. Moyo and Ms, Charmaine Jansen of the School of Health and Applied Sciences who kindly took me along on their weekend excursion to Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. Thanks also to Ms. Neavera Oliver and her team for support regarding the apartment at Polyheights, and last, but not least to the Rector, Dr. Tjama Tjivikua, for the fine dinners with B360 team members, and the interest which he takes in our work.

Windhoek, April 12, 2011