Take apart a printer
One thing that engineers all have in common is that they have had experience with taking things apart. The best way to know how some things operate is to see first hand how they are designed.
Directions:
Select a printer of your choice. These were purchased from the recycle store for $1 each! Don't worry about hurting them! You are going to take it apart to see what is inside.
First, look carefully and unscrew all the screws you can find. Your printer may have some parts that are snapped on rather than screwed on. YYour instructor will help you with take these apart. Be careful with some edges of plastic. They can be sharp.
Pay particular attention to the mechanisms that move the scanner lens across the printer page or the print head back and forth. Try to remove these parts so you can see how engineers use motors, gears, belts and bearings to move components in a printer.
In this laser printer example, paper is grabbed by a wheel on the bottom tray and then fed trough a system of rollers.
In this inkjet printer, the paper is moved in a similar fashion, but the print head moves back and forth to deposit ink on the page.
Saving Parts
Save the motors, gears, rollers and axles. These can be used and controlled by your own electronics and combined for interesting projects. Dispose of the rest of the materials from the printer responsibly.