Reverse Engineering of a Gripper Tool

First-year Mechanical Engineering students embark on a Reaching-aid project. But rather than start from scratch, they examine an existing "Gripper" tool.

Students reverse-engineer an existing reaching aid "Gripper" to determine the function of each component, its materials and the manufacturing processes used.

This process involves a variety of material identification testing procedures such as spectroscopy, impact testing and chemical analysis.

Following this lab, students are then equipped to make material selection choices, with justifications, for their own gripper tool development project.