FORD PAS:
Module 10 –Reverse Engineering
Module Overview
In this module, students analyze products. First, they focus on using reverse engineering to make good products for the
consumer by analyzing features of existing products, considering design factors that determine the ease of product assembly, and
looking at the manufacturing processes used to create products from different materials. Next, students will view reverse engineering
from the perspective of product failure, and analyze communications failures in written and visual instructions. Then, students test
different materials as they explore engineering failures related to material choice.
As students explore this topic, they develop some valuable skills: the use of logbooks, as in scientific and technical fields, to
make entries of experimental results, notes of team meetings, and meeting facilitation.
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Module
10
Activity
1
Title
Design
Detectives
Description
Learning Goals
Students begin by looking at how
products are made and thinking
about why they are made as they are.
The first products to analyze are can
openers, in a number of different
forms. They investigate how openers
were intended to be made and which
ones would be best for people with
different needs (e.g., left- or righthanded people, or those with arthritis).
Students learn to keep notes in their
design logbooks, which they will use
throughout the module.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
+ Identify primary and
secondary functions
Of various products.
+ Analyze a product’s
usability.
Reverse Engineering
New York State Standards
MST Standard 1: Analysis
Indicator : Engineering Design 1.1.1:
Initiate and carry out a thorough investigation of an unfamiliar situation and
identify needs and opportunities for
technological invention and innovation.
Indicator: Engineering Design 1.1.2.:
Identify, locate, and use a wide range of
information resources, and document
through notes and sketches how findings
relate to the problem.
December, 2010
p.1.
Activity
2
Title
Description
Learning Goals
New York State Standards
Sizing Up the Students begin by looking at the
+ Facilitate a team meeting CDOS Standard 3a: Foundation Skills
Competition reverse engineering process.
by structuring and manaIndicator: Personal Qualities 3.3.1
They will analyze Gadget King’s
ging the flow of ideas.
Demonstrate leadership skills in
competitors’ sippy cups to detersetting team goals, monitoring promine why the were designed as
+ Analyze how well a product’s gress, and improving their perforthey are and how easy they are
design meets the need of the
mance.
to put together. Students will
intended users.
document their work by recording
MST Standard 7: Problem Solving
data in their logbooks, as well as + Describe how to design a
Indicator: Connections 7.1.2:
practicing their meeting-facilitation
product for ease of assembly Analyze and quantify consumer proskills.
and use.
duct data, understand environmental
and economic impacts, develop a
method for judging the value and
efficacy of competing products, and
discuss cost/benefit and risk/benefit
tradeoffs made in arriving at the
optimal choice.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
Reverse Engineering
December, 2010
p. 2.
Activity
3
Title
Description
Learning Goals
New York State Standards
How’d They Students learn about common
+ Analyze products to
MST Standard 5: Technology
Make That ? manufacturing processes used to
determine what manufac- Indicator 2: Tools and Technoproduce products from raw mateturing processes were
logical Processes 5.2.2: Select
rials. Teams examine ordinary kitchen
used to create them.
appropriate tools, instruments
gadgets to determine the manufacand equipment and use them
turing processes that might be used
+ Justify why a particular
correctly to process materials,
in their construction. They learn how
manufacturing process is energy, and information
changing the materials used to create
appropriate for a product Indicator 5.2.3.: Explain tradea product or adding features to a proor particular material and offs made in selecting alternaduct affect how it is manufactured. They
how changing the way a
tive resources in terms of
also explore why it might be impossible
product is made may affect safety, cost, properties, availto change how a product is made, given
its usability, assembly, and/ ability, ease of processing
the limitations of particular manufacor cost.
and disposability;
turing processes, and present what they
learned to the class. Finally, students
+ Conduct on-line research MST Standard 2: Informavisit a facility to examine specific mateabout the raw materials,
tion Systems
rials and observe the processes used to
energy issues, manufacIndicator 2.1.3: access and
manufacture them.
turing processes, and waste analyze information obtained
outputs related to a product. from a wide range of sources
such as research databases ...
and electronic communication networks, including the
Internet.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
Reverse Engineering
December, 2010
p. 3.
Activity
4
Title
Description
Learning Goals
New York State Standards
A Failure to Students learn about the importance
+ Create instructions and
MST Standard 5: Technology
Communicate of communication in product design,
illustrations to precisely
Indicator: Design 5.1.3:
manufacture, and use. They begin
communicate the process Generate creative solution ideas
by producing a set of directions for
for assembling a product. break ideas into significant funcassembling a structure. Next, using
tional elements, and explore
directions produced by their partner
+ Critique and improve
possible refinements.
team, they create that team’s structure,
process instructions to
and they make technical illustrations
increase their ease of use. MST Standard 5: Technology
of the completed structure. Then, they
Indicator: Management of
assemble a model from a kit, critiquing
Technology 5.7.6: help to
the kits instructions as they work. Their
manage a group engaged in planfinal task is to use the knowledge gained
ning, designing, implementation,
from this experience to rewrite their
and evaluation of a project to
partner team’s structure-assembly direcgain understanding of managetions. Students continue to use their log
ment dynamics.
books and to practice their meeting-facilitation skills.
ELA Standard 1: Language for
Information and Understanding
Indicator 1.2.5: Revise and
improve early drafts by restructuring, correcting errors, and
revising for clarity and effect.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
Reverse Engineering
December, 2010
p. 4.
Activity
Title
5
Failure
Detectives
Description
Learning Goals
New York State Standards
Students explore engineering
+ Explain the conditions
MST Standard 5: Technology
failures to learn about the
under which a particular
Indicator 5.2.1: Test, use, and
importance of materials in
product must operate.
describe the attributes of a range
effective design. They examine
of materials (including synthetic
data from product failures to
+ Determine a plan to
and composite materials).
determine the cause(s) of failure.
evaluate the suitability
They then design experiments to
of a material for a parMST Standard 5: Technology
explore the physical and mechaniticular use, based on its
Indicator 5.2.2.: select appropriate
cal properties of metals and plastics
physical and mechanical tools, instruments, and equipment
and to look at the demands of
properties.
and use them correctly to process
operating conditions on the different
materials, energy, and information
material components of products.
MST Standard 1: Analysis,
Inquiry, and Design
Indicator 2: Scientific Inquiry
1.2.4:
Carry out a research plan for testing explanations, including selecting and developing techniques,
acquiring and building apparatus,
and recording observations as
necessary.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
Reverse Engineering
December, 2010
p. 5.
Activity
6
Title
The Ethics
of Failure
Description
Learning Goals
Students explore the ethics
+ Make complex decisions
related to engineering by
that take into account contaking on the roles of particiflicting concerns and points
pants in a catastrophic engiof view within an organizaneering failure – the explosion
tion.
of the space shuttle Challenger.
Students then use the ideas of
+ Explain and provide support
reverse engineering to examine
for a particular position on
accident reconstruction, teaming an ethics issue that involves
to look closely at a failure to
the safety of people.
figure out what happened and
what the source of the failure
+ Document through accepted
was.
methods the process of
reverse engineering.
New York State Standards
MST Standard 5: Technology
Indicator 5.1.1: Design
Initiate and carry out a thorough
investigation of an unfamiliar
situation and identify needs and
opportunities for technological
invention or innovation.
MST Standard 5: Technology
Indicator 5.2.3: Resources
Explain tradeoffs made in selecting alternative resources in
terms of safety, cost, ease of
processing.
MST Standard 5: Technology
Indicator 5.6.3.: Impacts
Explain that although technological
effects are complex and difficult to
predict accurately, humans can
control the development and implementation of technology.
Developed by the LIWorks Coalition
Reverse Engineering
December, 2010
p. 6.