Reverse Engineering: Mechanical Product - Visual Analysis

The Ratcheting Wrench

Visual Analysis:

• Rather than being flat, the form/shape of the socket wrench has a slanted, tapered twist to allow the user to better tighten nuts and bolts.
• The texture looks and feels smooth. Because the surface is polished metals you can see that light and dark ares are easily distinguishable, giving the wrench value.
• The emphasis on both ends of the wrench is clear because the ends are wider than the main handle, therefore they stand out.

Functional Analysis:

• The target audience for this ratchet wrench would be construction related workers, like people who make furniture or for people that work on their own cars.

Every Man’s Tool

• This tool is really for anyone who needs to loosen or tighten nuts and bolts for any reason.
• Almost everyone will at some point in their lives have use for a ratchet wrench.

• The mechanical locking function of a ratchet wrench makes it easier to use than regular wrench because you don’t have to keep readjusting the wrench, removing and replacing the wrench on the bolt you are tightening or loosening.

Here are pictures and a dimensional drawing of a RATCHET WRENCH, followed by a short video of the tool in action!

RATCHET WRENCH - Side View

RATCHET WRENCH - Front

RATCHET WRENCH - Top

RATCHET WRENCH - Dimensional Sketch

THE RATCHET WRENCH IN ACTION

GRAPHIC DESIGN: What's Going On In This Design?

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• My advertisement most likely came from a car dealership or an auto show of some type.
• The advertisement is for a 2011 Volvo C70 Hardtop Convertible
• Kacie and I worked as a team and made the following observations on Effective Graphic Designs:

Conclusion:

1. What are trends? Why is it important to identify them prior to graphic design?

• Both adds show off features that few other vehicles may have.
• Identifying trends in advertisement is important because it allows you to focus on the desires of potential customers to hopefully increase sales.

2. How does human nature play a role in how a product is marketed to a specific demographic group?

• People like a car that says something about their lifestyle, for instance the Kacie's SUV targets those buyers that want to help the environment. While my Volvo appears to target people that live more luxuriously.

3. How is a potential audience identified?

• By pointing out key desirable features the product will attract their target audience.

4. What must you discover about the target audience prior to graphic design?

• It's crucial to discover the audiences likes and dislikes, and put as many likable things into a product as possible.
• While also having the advertisement highlight the desirable aspects of a product.

VISUAL DESIGN: ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPALS

6 Visual Design Elements [themes]

• line
• color
• form/shape
• space
• texture
• value

5 Visual Design Principals

• balance
• rhythm
• emphasis
• proportion and scale
• unity

Flack Jacket

Here is a visual example that uses cluttered space, curved lines, the color is effective for blending into a woodland environment.

The texture appears bumpy and leafy, but is actually smooth.

Butterfly

There is balance between the leaf and butterfly as well as if you drew a center line down the middle of the butterfly.The wings have a rhythm if you look at the

white dots. There is emphasis on the orange part of the butterfly because your eyes are drawn to the bright color. You can tell the butterfly is small in proportion to the leaf. The picture has unity, I don't feel like there is anything out of place, everything works together.

Door Frame Pull-Up Bar

Here is an example of form/shape that is cylindrical and grips the door. The design is made toeasily put up and take down.

House Key

The house key has value because there are bright parts and darker parts to the metal. It also has balance when divided along its length.

Unicycle

Here the unicycle has rhythm in the spokes, and emphasis on the one wheel, as well as form/shape of the seat handles serving the purpose of making it easier to ride.

2.4.1 DESIGN Write-Up

1) With my partner Kacie our Emergency Supply design challenge is to make an organizer system that carries common emergency supplies and must not permanently attach to the car.

2) I chose this design brief because I thought it would be interesting and challenging. So we began to design the "Magna Box".

3) Design Steps:

• The first step in the design process was to create a box that holds the supplies AND won't slide around when the car is moving.
• The second step in thedesign process was to brainstorm with my partner Kacie. This was easy because we both agreed with each others proposals and we picked our three main ideas to be represented in the brochure.
• In the fourth step in the design process, the one objective we found difficult to meet was to ensure that the organizer system stayed in place. We only changed one constraint and that was to make the box removable, it was not permanently fixed to the car.

4) 3 Possible Design Solutions

Design Solution 1:

Magna Box - 2 sides and top view shown.

Magnets are red and box is green.

Design Solution 2:

Sliding storage device slides under the seat and hooks on to a bar to hold itself in place.

Front, side and top views are shown.

Design Solution 3:

Puzzle organizer slides the box between 2 brackets to hold the box in place.

Inside and back views shown.

Box in the top left corner.

5) The result of the decision matrix indicates that lower was better. So the Magna Box -design won.

6) The Magna Box will use magnets to keep the Emergency Supply Box in place.

7) Our Magna Box marketing brochure.

Front of Magna Box brochure.

Magna Box brochure with products.

SUPER ADVERTISING

• My favorite Super Bowl commercial was about the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle. The whole commercial was digitally animated of a Beetle with racing stripes.

• Advertising commercials during the Super Bowl costs an average of $3,000,000 for a 30 second spot. At that cost, Volkswagen will have to sell 120 new Beetles at $25,000 a car to pay for one commercial.

• An estimated 106 million people watch the Superbowl, so it's definitely worth it to advertise during the Superbowl. It's safe to assume that the odds are good that of those 106 million watchers, 120 of them will be tempted to buy a Beetle. Especially on Superbowl Sunday people are writing down mental shopping lists.

• For car salesmen it's a no-brainer to improve sales by advertising during the Superbowl because people are more likely to pay attention to some of the funniest/coolest commercials of the year.

U.S. Marine Corps (Gun Monkey) 0341 field infantrymen.

CHALLENGER DISASTER

• The O-ring connected to the solid rocket booster failed, allowing pressurized hot gas to reach the external fuel tank.

• Ronald Reagan's Special Commission found that the bigger problem was NASA's organizational culture and decision making process.

• A structural failure allowed the aero dynamic forces to destroy the rocket as it fell back to earth.

• The space program should learn a lot from this unfortunate disaster to improve, such as making an escape system, improving organization and more structure testing against all possible conditions before flight. Other dangers to shuttles are fire andgen leaks.

• Read more about the Reagan's Special Commissions findings on the Engineering Failures website: http://engineeringfailures.org/?p=85

EXTRA: For the Emergency Supply Organizer design project we chose the 3 top selling cars/trucks of 2010:

Ford F-150

Toyota Camry

Honda CR-V

To get the maximum amount of customers. We will also poll the class to see what their top choices are too.

CONTENT IS KING [Response]

Q-1: I really enjoy paintball. It's a good way to

get your adrenaline going. I think it's fun to slide, run, hide and shoot.

Q-2: The Camp Pendleton Paintball park uses blogging to promote their park. They have all kinds of information about the park scenery, suggested items to bring, available supplies to rent, and prices.

Here is a link to their blog:

http://www.myspace.com/cppaintballpark/blog

Q-3: I might blog as a military officer. I would create a blog that the people in my platoon could look at to to see what's going on, whats expected of them, some goals and a part for questions or comments.