This is not a class you take for the actual class material (it was all online due to covid and the "labs" were just completing tutorials/guided exercises from an online tool, SolidProfessor), but rather for Prof. Shaefer's delightful personality. He clearly cared about each student in the 60-something person class, and took the time to give extensive feedback even if what we were doing was relatively simple.

The format of this class, at least online, was a lecture on the first day of the week and then two lab sections "led" by the TAs (the TA's actually don't really do much besides answer questions). Lab attendance was essentially optional; all you do is go onto SolidProfessor, watch a series of tutorial videos, and complete 2-5 practice exercises. The practice exercises usually take longer than the allotted 2 hours (there was one lab that took me 10 hours) so you're expected to finish them outside of class. The only advantage of going to the (zoom) lab is that you can ask questions to the TA's/your classmates.

Some of the exercises were tedious especially later in the SolidProfessor course (weeks 4-7) but weeks 8, 9, 10 were all spent on the final project. Don't expect to do a lot of CAD modeling for the final project but prepare to do a lot of documentation and writing. Overall, this was a solid class (no pun intended) and recommend taking it.

Professor Shaefer's lectures were very well organized and he really seemed to care about his students. Also, if he is teaching MAE 94, take the class! He makes it so easy for students to do well. And i really feel like I got something out of it.

This was the most enjoyable class I have taken at UCLA. Learning soliworks via solid professor was extremely valuable and Prof Shaefer really cared about helping us become better engineers. Overall, this class was fun, easy and interesting. 10/10

MAE-162B was the senior mechanical engineering design course (Capstone Design Course) in which we had to design, analyze, and build an electro-mechanical device of our own creation. It was a very tough course. Each of the class’ 5-student member teams had to come up with a design concept that we would be able to fabricate and demonstrate within a span of 10 weeks. For a senior undergrad who had only taken fundamental academic engineering courses, this was a very big challenge. Before taking this class, I had no experience in solving real-life engineering problems. However, not only did we eventually succeed, but also our group was ranked first and won the “best design” competition. We developed an automatic tee-shirt folding machine, which with a push of a button folded a tee-shirt perfectly, every time. To this day, I am very proud of our design and of the final product, which we even powder coated. Had it not been for the lectures, design guidance, encouragement, and motivation by Prof. Shaefer we would most likely not have succeeded. Through the tireless hour-long weekly team meetings, which Prof. Shaefer held with every one of the 12 teams in the class, he would go over all our design, analysis, and fabrication issues and he would always be very encouraging never letting us lose our enthusiasm until the very end of the project. His lectures were very well organized, and the topics were directly relevant to the majority of the team’s projects. In addition, he introduced us to the Cambridge Engineering Materials Selector (GRANTA – M. Ashby) and he made the class learn the software and apply it to select the most suitable materials for our devices. Prof. Shaefer also introduced us to FEM analysis and mandated that every team optimize part thicknesses based on anticipated loadings. Needless to say, we learned a lot about real-life engineering in a very short time, because of his personal devotion to the class, which was evident in his willingness to help teams outside of class or lab time. I consider it an honor great luck and to have had such a caring and knowledgeable professor in the Capstone Design course, which was the last course of my B.S. education at UCLA.

I took this class as a sophomore and this was so far my favorite class that I've taken at UCLA. Right of the bat, with the first lecture, Professor Shaefer showed his delightful personality. He is very engaging and I found the class to be very fun because I really like SolidWorks. I had some prior experience using SolidWorks from clubs, and I felt like it gave me a big advantage during this course because I was able to work more efficiently and on my personal computer. This was a class that I wouldn't mind taking over, and over, and over again.
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Pros:
*Super fun
*Possible to receive extra credit
*Professor Shaefer is a great human being, offers a lot of help
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Cons:
*Shaefer expressed that he is semi-retired :(
*No PDF version of book
*Logistical problems with mass 3D-printing

Professor Shaefer is a super laidback guy, but he's also really helpful and engaging. His class policies were very lenient; in fact he replaced our midterm and final with a rubber band car project because he felt it would be a better learning experience. Overall this was a great class and was something I looked forward to every week. Sometimes lectures can be a bit boring but that's because the material is pretty introductory so not much else can be expected.

The labs can often be finished in about two hours so don't be too intimidated by the timeslot. Personally, I did already have some CAD experience going into this class, but the class is very beginner friendly. Even so, I still learned a ton of new Solidworks features and capabilities. Take this class!

Shaefer is an incredibly thoughtful and kind professor who definitely cares about his students. For one thing, he excused tardiness and eating during the beginning of lecture since he realized that people would be walking over from the other side of campus and because the class was after lunchtime. He was also very understanding with deadlines and sometimes pushed deadlines back because he didn't want to stress us out. He taught the material in a clear manner and the lab assignments were fairly straightforward. The final project was a pretty cool experience since we got to design an acrylic rubber band car. There were only like three quizzes total, and he gave a ton of extra credit on assignments if you did the work particularly well.

Loved this class! Definitely recommend Shaefer. I came in with no solid works experience and was pretty nervous about falling behind, but the class is structured so that you don't compete against your classmates at all. The labs could be extremely long and tedious (I recommend not scheduling anything directly after the lab period in case you need to keep working). I didn't mind too much though because I found the labs interesting and rewarding. Definitely my favorite class at UCLA so far and 100% recommend Shaefer! Just put in the effort and don't be afraid to ask questions, especially if you need more time or have run into a problem. Shaefer loves to help and he works really hard to get to know everyone. It was really nice to ask him a question about my project and realize he had looked at my initial project proposal in great detail. He also took the time to create extra solid works models outside of class and send them out so that we could all understand the features he wanted us to include.

A wonderful professor! I loved taking this class and I feel like I learned a lot about solidworks and the engineering design process. I trained myself in CAD software in high school but taking an actual class on it made me feel a lot more confident in my skills as a designer so I would highly recommend it no matter your current skill level. The professor also has us do a design project rather than a final exam that lets us use all the skills we developed over the quarter.

He's a really nice guy and really cares about all the students. One of the labs took FOREVER and was really hard, and it's hard to find the motivation to do a 50 page report but still a good class.