This week was a huge step in the right direction for furthering our prototype development. Our two sub teams, mechanical and electrical/computer science, met separately to reverse engineer two of the machines provided to us by our liaison engineers. Those being the Mr. Coffee Iced Coffee Maker and the Mr. Coffee Frape Maker. This significantly helped the team as a whole to understand functionality of these machines, how they’re manufactured, and how the individual components work together as a whole to accomplish a task. The idea behind separating into sub teams was to allow each member the opportunity to reverse engineer in a way that was tailored to their discipline. This method was very successful and was proven as such based on the valuable discussion on prototype planning and prototype design generation carried out during class this week.

Looking forward, the mechanical sub team plans to precisely measure and generate 3D CAD models and corresponding drawings for the various components isolated during reverse engineering. From these to-scale drawings, we intend to begin manufacturing as many components as possible through the methods available to us such as 3D printing, water jet and laser cutting, mill and lathe operations, and so on. The electrical and computer science sub team will be developing electrical schematic diagrams showing electrical connections within the system in great detail. They will also continue analysis on the electrical connections within the system to determine the most compact and efficient way to connect the various components. The team as a whole will be conducting prototype testing with the several parts we requested including a magnetic stirrer, heating plate, and several small motors.

Enjoy the picture below showing the reverse engineering process in action.