Reverse Engineering

John Kosta, Jovais Kennedy, Holly Jossart, and Sage Jones

Purpose

We want to learn how efficient the pencil sharpener is and how it is

capable of carving perfect points. We want to focus on how we could

be able to make the pencil sharpener portable and smaller.

Hypothesis

How do we turn a stationary pencil sharpener with a plug for an outlet

to a portable and efficient pencil sharpener.

Disassembly
Flow Chart
Functional Analysis

- Starts with lever that activates the motor

- Motor spins a magnetic gear which spins the main gear

- The main gear in turn spins the sharpening gear and sharpening

mechanism
Structural Analysis

- Two sets of parts, the external and internal

- The internal parts are all connected to one and another

- Once the first part inside the pencil sharpener is activated, the whole

machine starts going

Material Analysis
Battery: coiled copper wire surrounded by plastic. The copper wire amps up the electricity and
the plastic stops it from going to the rest of the machine.
Motor: metal connector to the battery, metal crank shaft, plastic gear. The metal connector
allows energy to flow through and make the crank spin which makes the gear spin.
Sharpener: metal extension and metal razor. The extension provides a hole for the pencils to
sit in. The razor is what actually sharpens the pencil.
Pencil Sensor: plastic sensor and wires. The sensor is plastic because plastic doesn’t conduct
electricity and the sensor gets its electricity from the wires.
Power Cord: copper wire covered in rubber. Rubber keeps electricity from leaving the copper.
Gear: rubber gear
Manufacturing Analysis
All of the plastic pieces on our machine are the product of an injection molding process in which
melted plastic is forced into a mold cavity. Once the plastic has cooled, the object is released
and then the process begins all over again. Power cables use stranded copper or aluminum
conductors. Razor blades are made from a special corrosion resistant blend of steel called
carbide steel because it is made using a tungsten-carbon compound.
Discussion Questions

- We discovered that our pencil sharpener is very durable both inside of it and the outside.

- The sharpener was the only piece that showed wear, it was a little dulled down.

- The cause of the wear for the sharpener was due to wrong pencils being inserted into the

machine. This caused the sharpener to be worn down much faster than it usually is.
Discussion Questions

- We got a better understanding on how the parts worked together which allowed us to

choose what parts need improving

- We are incapable of completing our hypothesis due to lack of materials and time

- It helped us discover what all the functions and purposes were for all the parts
 Redesign Ideas
Replace power cord with a battery

Make the entire device smaller

BATTERY REPLACES POWER CORD