Break it apart!

For this project we had to bring an object in to class that could be taken apart. The directions were that it must be more complex than a mechanical pencil and not as complex as a computer. I decided to go with an old calculator. It was pretty simple to take apart so it was only really a day. It was just mainly screws. After analyzing it for awhile I drew sketches of what I saw, as seen in the picture below.

The next step was to try and figure out how things work. I wrote down many questions to look up to make my research a little bit easier. I found out a lot from looking things up such as the circuit board and how obtains electricity from the battery and transfers it to the screen.,

Concepts:

Conceptual sketches - Expresses the object in visual form, while showing the elements and relationships of the parts. It allows an engineer to understand how the parts are connected.  In this project I did lots of sketches of  the objects. 

Flow Chart -  A diagram that shows the flow of electricty, in this case I drew how it went from the battery to the screen.

Reflection:

Overall I feel like I did well in this project. I actually enjoyed this a lot.  I feel like my problem solving was very well and the ability to overcome obstacles. There were many times where I didnt know bwhat to do and got frustrated. But I took a step back and revaluated everything. For overcoming problems I had this time where I dropped the calculator while it was open and all the keys for each number and symbol came out. I had to look up the exact calculator and put every key back to its normal spot.

Even though I did very well theres always room for improvements. I feel like I need to improve on my time managment skills, I always have struggled with this. I have gotten better with dealing with it but it always is a close call with deadlines. For this case I did my sketches very late. I waited til the very last minute to do them and it put me under a lot of stress.