Reverse Engineering A Calculator
Evidence of Work In this project my group and I worked on reverse engineering a calculator. We wanted to answer five questions. We wanted to know how the circuit board and screen works, how it is powered, how the board connects to the screen, and how the rubber buttons control the board. My group and I split up these questions among ourselves to research and define. The reverse engineering process consists of six steps. The first step was to identify the purpose. We needed to establish what we needed to do to help drive us to our end product. The next step was to create a hypothesis to pinpoint what we wanted our presentation to explain. Our third step was to disassemble our calculator. Step four was to analyze the parts to define and identify their functions. During this step we drew diagrams, measured, and found what the different components were made of (this can be found in our slideshow below). We also found where and how the calculator was manufactured. Steps five and six were developing a report and the project redesign, which was explaining if the calculator could be made better.
My group and I created a slideshow to present our findings. We included all steps from the project redesign with all components and what their functions served. Our goal was to prove that our hypothesis was correct through our research we collected. We have blueprints with measurements along with other pictures. |
Content |
General Terms:
1) Reverse Engineering: A strategy used to find answers to questions about an existing product that are used in the design of another product. 2) Gantt Chart: A way to display dates and deadlines for projects or goals. 3) Hypothesis: A prediction or educated guess that can be proven through an experiment or research. 4) Functional Analysis: Finding the function of different parts and analyzing how those pieces work with each other to create a product. 5) Structural Analysis: How all of the parts are held together. 6) Material Analysis: What the materials are and what they are made of. 7) Manufacturing Analysis: How the product was made. 8) Blueprint: Shows a design or sketch sometimes with measurements or a scale. Project Components: 9) The protective Plastic empty husk (protective piece): holds the calculator together 10) Circuit board: board that computes all equations 11) Connective paper: connects the circuit board to screen 12) Screen: shows all numbers added or subtracted and a solution 13) Backboard: holds calculator together and protects circuit board 14) Wires: connects the circuit board to the metal sides 15) Metal sides: connect to the core (power source) 16) Button cell: is the battery or power source of calculator 17) Screws: holds together the protective piece 18) Protective cover: holds the power or button cell in place 19) Rubber button sheet: allows use of circuit board 20) Stubble indent: holds the calculator in place |
Reflection |
I felt like I did very well with managing my time to get certain goals done each day. Me and my group set goals to finish every day or couple of days so that we didn't fall behind and have to do everything last minute. An example was that I made sure to finish all of my research in two days so that we had the last three days to work on our presentation. I also did very well with collaborating with teammates. We all made sure that we had a fair amount of work and that we could ask each other to help the other if we were stuck. If I couldn't find how exactly the circuit board computed data I could ask someone to help research the answer.
One part that I need to improve on is my ability to present out to the class. There were a few instances where I would get tongue tied over a sentence and say something different than how I actually wanted to say it. The second part that I could improve on was leadership. No one in our group took charge solely. I could have taken charge and gotten us organized but we were able to figure it out as a group, which also worked very well. |