averaged 88% before exam; then exam destroyed everyone but I copped the most damage dropping down to 48% as final grade :(

It's possible to fall behind in this unit and quickly catch up. It's not uncommon to get no help from group members for the labs so be prepared to do them entirely yourself.

an interesting unit which i can easily understand. i had fun at this unit and achieved HD.

This unit would be not too difficult for you if you have a good interpretation of 3D drawings. For example, you may need to understand balance of forces in 3D diagrams, and most importantly, learn to draw them by yourself. This seems to be easy, but actually detailed and informative 3D drawings are a little tricky, which may challenge your skills of organizing information and thorough understanding of the concepts. From my experience with some good postgraduate students. one of their skills is to show something they are thinking about with neat and informative drawings. The rest of the work is mostly about repeating the practice. Equations are not too difficult to understand and memorise.

One of the interesting unit to me. Need to do the example questions constantly.