Chosen Object(s) and Some 3D Shapes Practice

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For this week, we were instructed to pick 3 objects as options for our reverse engineering project. While I did end up with 3, I went through a variety of different objects before settling on these; here are some of the objects I considered, and why I didn't go with them:

Lighter: While I was pretty confident in this one being my chosen object, it had less parts than I thought once I took it apart, and I couldn't manage to get it back together without snapping some of the pieces in half! So it unfortunately didn't work out.

Candle Snuffer: I had originally thought this was a bunch of smaller pieces, but it only ended up being the handle and the bell shape on the end so it wasn't enough to work with.

Corkscrew: I fought with this thing for half an hour before giving up on getting it apart. I was really excited about it too, I thought it would make for an interesting project!

Utility Knife: Basically the same problem as the last one, it has a tab holding it together that I couldn't get at no matter how hard I tried. Also this may count as a weapon so I don't know if I could have used it anyways?

And here are the ones I chose:

1. A pen

Of the 3 I picked, this one was definitely the easiest looking. While simpler than the others, it has more complex parts than I originally thought and I think the lettering + graphic on the side would pose an extra challenge. By this point I was just excited that I finally found something I didn't break or give up trying to take apart 😆

2. A computer mouse

This one was a sort of last resort object- while I thought I would have lots of things to choose from, as you can see I managed to break or be unable to take apart most of the original ideas I had. I was hoping to go with something that hadn't been done before, or at least something less common, but I think a computer mouse would make a decent challenge for this project while still being reasonable to make.

Fun fact: this mouse originally had a broken scroll wheel when I started taking it apart and I managed to fix it while working on this assignment! I did however spend 20 minutes thinking I'd completely broken it again before realizing I had the battery in backwards.

3. An Xbox 360 controller

This is one I was pretty confident in until I actually took it apart- there were pieces flying everywhere and I spent more time picking up buttons and screws than I did disassembling + photographing it. While I think this could be an excellent challenge for someone, I'm not sure that someone is me as I don't know if I could actually manage to make this one. 

Overall, I'm definitely leaning towards either the pen or the mouse; just looking at the controller kind of makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm starting to like the pen more, mostly because of both the quantity of pieces as well as the larger variety of shapes in it. As I'm not familiar with what I would need to create the springs and threading found throughout the object, I think it would make for a good challenge; though I'm also willing to do the mouse if the pen seems too simple. 

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Extra: Progress Report on the Shapes Worksheet

I've been working on these for a good few hours and as of the time of posting, this is what I have for the advanced shapes worksheet. It's 11 at night and my eyes are burning so I'm going to give it another go before class tomorrow and hopefully finish!

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Thanks for reading, I'm looking forward to seeing what objects everyone else has come up with!

- Forrest