Reverse Engineering With Autodesk Inventor
Reverse Engineering is also a project that involves lots of uses of Autodesk Inventor. It's the very last Engineering project we did in IED before school is out. We started this project after we have studied all the basic skills that is necessary to be good engineer. In addition, Reverse Engineering is uncontroversial the hardest project of IED and the project with most points. The goal of this Reverse Engineering project is to take the pencil sharpener apart and analyze its workings in detail. Before we can start model it in the software, we need to use a dial caliper to measure every details of the sharpener, record the measurements in the Engineering notebook together with the Visual Analysis, Structural Analysis and Functional analysis of this sharpener. Visual analysis is the overview of the Sharpener packaging; Functional Analysis is the descriptions of input and output of the sharpener as well as the function of each component of the sharpener; and Structural Analysis is the multi-view and Isometric view of each component with detailed dimensions. Reverse Engineering is a group project and requires the cooperation of the 3 group members. Furthermore, since it's a group project, we divide the 9 components evenly among the three members. Therefore, each group members have 3 components of the sharpener to dimension and model in Inventor. This allows us to work efficiently and save time for the group. The 3 components modeled by me are the Dial pin, Handle and the Sharpener Shaft, while the rest parts of modeled by my two other group members. After we are all done with the assigned individual parts of the sharpener. We fully constrained all the parts together in Inventor to create the assembly file as shown later below. The reverse Engineering project requires us to put in efforts as a group in order to successfully complete the assembly of the Sharpener.
Below are the Sketch and Analysis from my Engineering Notebook about the pencil Sharpener.
Visual Analysis and Functional Analysis |
Structural Analysis |
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This is the packaging and the picture of X-ACTO KS™ MANUAL PENCIL SHARPENER we are trying to reverse engineer and model in Autodesk Inventor. X-ACTO KS Manual Pencil Sharpener is the most commonly used sharpener in schools and the best selling manual pencil sharpener in the U.S.
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This is the group assembly of the final product that is made of different individual parts from Autodesk Inventor.
These are the 9 individual parts of the sharpener modeled by my group and me. These are also all the components that makes up the assembly of the pencil sharpener. These components are Dial pin, Handle, Sharpener Shaft, Long screw, Dial selector, Sharpener stand, Shaving receptacle, Cutter, and a small Screw. ( From left to right). The first three are my pieces that I modeled in AI.
Conclusions
As the final Project of the Introduction to Engineering Design. The pencil Sharpener project assess all the engineering skills we studied this year. Although we worked as a group to complete modeling the sharpener in Autodesk, this project is still the most complicated and hardest project of the whole IED class. It took almost the whole Trimester 3 for groups to finish the piece. Overall, the process of taking the Sharpener apart and remodeled it in Inventor is fun but also strenuous. Furthermore, This Reverse Engineering project uses almost every single skills we have covered previously in class, for example, uses of dial caliper, isometric sketches, multi-view sketch with dimensions skills, various analyses, as well as different features and assembly skills of Autodesk. The Handle and the Sharpener shaft I modeled in this project is in fact the most complex piece I have done this year.
The most challenging aspect of this Sharpener project is the assembly of different individual parts. Since all the components are extremely complex compares to other AI pieces we did this year, and different components are modeled by different group members, the constraint of the assembly sometimes didn't work smoothly. This then requires the team members to change the dimensions of some pieces in order for the components to interlock with each other. The process of changing and fixing dimensions is very stressful to be honest. Only after numerous attempts of unifying the part's dimensions, our team finally constrained all the complex sharpener parts together. This final project helped me learned the valuable cooperation and communication skills between the team members as well as the team norms that keeps the collaborations and teamwork organized. The last project of the year has taken my modeling skills into another level, and built more confidence in me when I model something in AutoCAD. Although this Pencil Sharpener project seems very difficult and stressful, however, it ensures I have all the Engineering knowledge in mind and better prepared to become an engineer.
The most challenging aspect of this Sharpener project is the assembly of different individual parts. Since all the components are extremely complex compares to other AI pieces we did this year, and different components are modeled by different group members, the constraint of the assembly sometimes didn't work smoothly. This then requires the team members to change the dimensions of some pieces in order for the components to interlock with each other. The process of changing and fixing dimensions is very stressful to be honest. Only after numerous attempts of unifying the part's dimensions, our team finally constrained all the complex sharpener parts together. This final project helped me learned the valuable cooperation and communication skills between the team members as well as the team norms that keeps the collaborations and teamwork organized. The last project of the year has taken my modeling skills into another level, and built more confidence in me when I model something in AutoCAD. Although this Pencil Sharpener project seems very difficult and stressful, however, it ensures I have all the Engineering knowledge in mind and better prepared to become an engineer.