Reverse Engineering

Visual Analysis:

Here are different views of the automoblox car that we got,

Functional Anaylsis:

There were three parts to the base of the car, front, middle, and rear. On the front and back parts there were wheels on both sides to make it roll. In the middle there was a base to carry the passengers. There was a roof on top of the vehicle to cover the passenger. The axles allowed the wheels on the car to turn with ease.

Structural Analysis:

The structural analysis included reverse engineering, in which we took apart the car to see how it was made.

Reflection:

Visual design principles and elements help sell products to consumer because if a product looks good, it will probably catch the eye of customers. The point of the car is to look like an actual car and function like one.

The black box in my opinion, is the parts of an object that is not seen, but it contributes to making the object perform its desired function. The unseen parts are what needs to be reverse engineered to be understood.

Engineers perform reverse engineering tests to understand how a product was made and why it was successful. They take ideas from other engineers and slightly modify it to make the improved item for themselves.

Personally, I would make the wheels on the front be able to turn sideways to make it more realistic, and give it more of a sporty look on all the cars. I like the design of the automoblox. It needs to look better, but otherwise I think it functions pretty well.

Automoblox Dimensioned Drawings on Inventor

In this project, I got to the passenger section part. The most challenging part of this process was finding the exact coordinates of the extruded parts of each shape because there was a lot of math involved in order to put it in the right place. The easiest part of this process I would say is extruding the parts or filleting it. My remaining question for Inventor is how to make stars in a more easier way rather than making each line manually, since using the circular option did not work for me.

Geometric Constraints Reflection Post

The shapes we used in this project was mainly triangles, formed into the form of triangular pyramids because we thought triangles were very strong. The angles that resulted from our shapes were 60 degree angles all around the structure. The surface area is 54.2 in^2, including the bottom of the structure. We would probably cover the outside of the structure with a combination of wood and concrete, and we would need around 40.65 in^2 to cover the outside of the structure. The inside of the structure has the same surface area. I would assume that 6 people would be able to fit inside comfortably, especially since there is a second level to the structure. To test the strength of the building, we placed two composition notebooks successfully on top of the building without having it collapse. We also use a hammer and hit it a few times before hand. To follow the "form follows function" practice, we used triangles since they are super strong, and our structure turned out to work fairly well.

Inventor Question

On inventor, I had a question on using fillets and chamfers to make it fit on rounded edges, and how to change its dimensions around it. I looked up this video and found out how easy it is and how to make the fillet/chamfer fit on rounded edges.

I worked with Paras on inventor and his question was how to find the center of a sketch after making it, and I discovered how easy it really was once he showed me.

Form Meets Function Reflection Post

For this project, I intended on the wheel cap to be mostly black or silver, depending on what the consumer wants. I made this product to be 20". The fan shaped rims are meant to help cool down brakes. It started with the outer rims and I designed the fan to fit inside. It meets the design meets function requirement because regular wheel caps are just meant for looks and do not have much function other than holding the wheel up. The design reminds me of  a fan because that was the points of the design, and turns when the wheel is moving. It is pretty similar to many designs out there with flat spokes pointing outwards in the wheel, but my design is curved and intakes air from outside, so it has a function. I think this design could be better if I can actually test the fans to see how much air it needs to take in and design the fan to take in air without slowing down the car. As of now, it is only a concept without any improvements.

Puzzle Cube Reflection

I timed 9 people for solving the cube, and many more attempted on trying to solve my cube. Only 3 people solved my cube. I timed out for people who took more than 16 minutes.

Solved:

Sonia: ~1min
Paras: ~2 min (claimed)
Mikkayla: ~10 min

Unsolved:

Mr Ho: ~5min
Sukhjit: 3 min 54 sec
William: 16 min
Aasish: ~25 min
Sruthi: ~30 min
Archit: 16 min




Mean: 11.43 minutes
Median: 13 minutes
Mode: 16 minutes
Range: 15 minutes
Standard Deviation: 9.22316

Reflection Questions:

1. It is important to model an idea before finalizing it because it is costly to make a full scale and take the risk of possibly re-doing it because there was an error or something you didn't want.

2. I love the piece that is completely locked in the middle because it cannot be moved without removing another piece of the cube.

3. One thing I would change about my puzzle is that there were two pieces that didn't really connect with the other pieces and were not interlocking. I wish I made it interlocking to make the cube more of a challenge.