Essential Question
| How can reverse engineering help me better understand the way certain electronics work? |
Statement of Definition
| For my Senior Project, I will be taking apart various broken electronics in order to learn about the components that make it work, as well as using that knowledge to potentially fix the devices. |
Overview
| Basically, my project will consist of me taking apart broken electronics from the tech office, noting down its components and functions, and using that to figure out what is wrong with the device so that I could potentially fix it. I will also be watching a lot of videos and reading books, as well as listening to podcasts in order to further my understanding of engineering and machines in general. The academic scope of this project is the fact that I will essentially be teaching myself to reverse engineer. I will have various online resources, but I won’t have a teacher who can help me one on one if I struggle. I have done engineering related activities in the past – such as at the Cooper Union Summer STEM program over the summer – but that was a lot of group work, so I ended up leaning a lot on the support of my group members, and as an effect, I didn’t get as much out of the experience as I wanted to. This independent project will allow me to better learn about engineering at my own pace. I will incorporate critical thinking and creativity into this project because I don’t imagine that taking a system apart and finding out what is wrong with it will be easy, and doing that alone will require me to analyze the different components of a device and really think about its function and what might cause it to affect the way the system works. Doing that will also incorporate creativity because I can compare the different electronics’ components and if I ran into similar problems in the past while working on a device, I can come up with a solution to solve the current problem I may be facing with a different device. |
How I will measure my success?
| Realistically speaking, I don’t imagine that I will be able to fix all of the broken devices I am given to work with. That being said, if I am able to fix at least one electronic device, I would call that a success. If not that, then at least a sense of confidence in talking about the devices I was given to work with, its components, and what each thing does. |
Resource List
| “Reverse Engineering for Beginners” book, broken electronics in tech office, varied tool kit to fix them, YouTube videos, podcasts, Toby Zitsman (tech office) |
Daily Plan & Schedule
| I will spend about 10 hours each week using my online resources to better my engineering understanding. That means I will go through different podcasts, videos, read, etc. during that time. Then, for another 10 hours, I would tinker with whatever broken device I have, and use what I learned with the research to help me. |
Documentation Plan
| I would document the work I did through a daily journal. I would create a folder for my project, and in it, I would have daily updates on what I complete throughout the day. If I had some sort of breakthrough or was able to fix a device, I would probably have more to say in the journal, but if not, then I would simply write about whatever it is that I WAS able to accomplish and reflect on that. I would, of course, also include pictures of what I am able to accomplish and incorporate that into my reflections as well. I was also thinking of incorporating my thoughts every once in a while about this being a potential career, since that is one of the challenges I said I would tackle. I don’t imagine writing about that everyday, but if something significant enough happens for me to have opinions on a career, then I will write about it. Engineering notebooks are always used when we work on the robot in robotics. At the end of each day, someone makes sure to write down what we completed, what still needs to get done, etc. and I feel like this is the best way for me to reflect on my work since it is very similar to the process of any engineer. Since this is in a folder, it would be easily accessible to my cohort leader to keep track of the work I get done. |
Ian, I’m excited to see how this project unfolds and what you learn. What is intriguing to me is that you’ll be opening up tools and devices that we generally take for granted and often think of as a single thing. What I suspect that you’ll uncover is an intriguing world of interrelated systems.