Reverse Engineering Project

Intro to Project:

The reverse engineering project was a fun group project that combined engineering and teamwork together to create a detailed report. The goal of the project was to take one object from a table group and do a deep dive into the object. My group had two similar computer mice so Mr. Tronconni, our professor, allowed us to deep dive both of them and compare them. Our goal was to figure out how they worked by looking at the Mechanical, Structural, Material, and Manufacturing parts of all the objects. We wrote a very thorough and detailed report entailing all valuable information about the mice and then came up with some hypothetical engineering ideas that would technologically advanced the mice.

Reflection:

During this project, I believe one area where my group and I excelled was in our collaboration. We quickly came together to decide the direction of the project and divide the tasks efficiently. This strong communication really helped us overcome challenges along the way. For instance, when working on our presentation, each member had a different style. One teammate created a dense paragraph instead of bullet points like the others. After discussing it, he promptly revised it to better fit the slideshow format. Additionally, I think we showed great dedication and work ethic. Unlike many others, our group had to research two different mice, which meant double the workload. Despite this, we managed to submit everything on time and conducted thorough research for each part instead of doing a surface-level job due to the extra work.

Although our report was strong, there are areas for improvement in our presentation. While we kept the slides concise to focus on speaking, our first draft lacked enough visuals (I’ve attached the updated version above). For example, in my section on manufacturing, I added labeled pictures to make the explanation clearer rather than just listing component names. Also, I realized I spent too much time discussing the manufacturing process. In previous presentations, the slideshow was the main way our teacher saw all our research, so they tended to be long and detailed. This time, since we also submitted a lab report, I didn’t need to explain every step. Next time, I’ll focus on one key component during the presentation and leave additional details for the report.

Overall, I feel I developed stronger research skills and gained a deeper appreciation for the effort involved in creating even a simple product.