Product: A DS19380 Sanyo Television

Targeted Audience: Senior Citizens (retired)

Feedback:

            Reverse engineering is the process of taking apart a product to make it better. If there is a problem with a product you may take it apart to fix the problem or you might listen to your customers’ feedback and take apart the product to give your customers what they want.  Reverse engineering is practiced by the industry because corporations want to stay in business, expand their business, make a lot of money, and provide a quality product. Reverse engineering teaches one how to take a product, break it down, and revive it. Forward engineering teaches someone how to build a product from the ground up. Reverse engineering helps you keep and gain customers because you take apart a product to produce a better quality version to meet current demands. If a manufacturer is known for producing great quality products and taking into consideration their customers feedback, then not only will their customers become loyal but it will help them attract new customers.

            The constraints for the product were that it could only be in three colors, cost no more than 300 dollars, and must be senior citizen friendly. Things included in senior citizen friendly are being light weight, cheap, having closed caption, simple functions, and power saving. The criteria helped assist me by reminding me that I had to design and shape my television around the constraints and apply the criteria to my final product. Television’s weight required an immediate upgrade because it was way too heavy for most senior citizens to lift due to their frail bones. The televisions also needed an additional speaker so that elderly people could clearly hear their show and if they could not  hear the show or didn’t want to, closed caption was added to the television, so the elderly would be able to know what was being said on the television. The first thing we did was sketch and take notes on the original television. Next we took the television apart. That took a while because we took into consideration not to damage any components so they could be used for future reference. Then we researched and analyzed the parts to understand their functions. After that we thought about which parts could be changed or upgraded to make the product better. After doing that we designed our new televisions based on the criteria, constraints, and what we had learned.

            In conclusion, the project was very helpful in teaching reverse engineering. It really taught me how to keep the customer in mind when I’m designing a product to be sold. I wish we could have broken the television down more so we could see what was inside the screen. I also learned how a television works. I did not know that the “ray tube” would be inside the television to make it work. However I did know that something was inside the television to take light and create a picture, which is what a “ray tube” essentially does.  All in all, I think that the project was very successful in teaching us about reverse engineering. I do wish that we had the resources and time to build our own versions of our televisions.