Module 10 : Reverse Engineering

ABOUT

In Reverse Engineering, students analyze products, determining how they can be designed to meet the needs of their intended users and considering other factors that influence product design. First, students focus on using reverse engineering to make good products for the consumer by analyzing features of existing products, considering design factors that determine the ease of product assembly, and looking at the manufacturing processes used to create products from different materials. Students then focus on reverse engineering from the perspective of product failure, and analyze communication failures in written and visual instructions. Students also test different materials as they explore engineering failures related to material choice. For their module project, students analyze a case study and role-play its situation.

As students explore the process of reverse engineering, they develop a number of valuable skills. Students are introduced to logbooks and their use in scientific and technical fields, and make log entries of experiment results, team meeting notes, and sketches of products. In addition, students continue to develop their teamwork skills, focusing on meeting facilitation.