Product: Sanyo Television Model #: DS19380

Targeted Audiences: Senior Citizens/ Elderly (retired, on a fixed income)

Feedback:

                I feel that reverse engineering is when you take an already made product and work backwards by taking it apart. Instead of inventing something new, you take something that’s already made and break it apart. By doing this you are able to find out how the product really works. This helps the engineers know exactly how to fix it when something goes wrong. Instead of looking at the outside features of a product and building off of that, you actually tear apart the product, and work from the inside out. Reverse engineering gives you a better outlook on the product rather and helps you better understand the things you wouldn’t normally is on the outside of a product. Reverse engineering is probably practiced in the industries because it allows the engineers to relate to the product, as well as the consumers, on a deeper level than if they were just innovation the invention. Reverse engineering allows you to learn about the ENTIRE product, inside and out, instead of just what you see at first glance. It also gives you a chance to relate to the problems that consumers might have with the product (technical issues, weight issues, etc.). I honestly do think that you gain, as well as keep, customers through reverse engineering. By understanding the whole product, you understand your customers. And that is what keeps them coming back for more of your service.

                The biggest constraint on this project would have to be age. Because of the fact that the targeted audience was older in age, this limited a lot of things that we could do. The constraints would be the size and the weight of television. The criteria for this project would be accommodating the targeted audience’s poor vision and hearing, having closed-captions on the screen, not making it too complicated to understand, it had to come in three colors, it cost $300, and making it so that is shouldn’t be mounted on the wall. The criteria helped me design the product because it told me what I could and could not do. By accommodating poor vision and hearing it told us that we need to make the screen bigger so the targeted audience is able to see and more speakers so the sound is better. The size; weight; speakers; frame; cable outlets; air vents; and screen needed advancements done to them. The size was too bulky which led to the weight of the television being heavy. The old model only had one speaker in the frame which wouldn’t be enough for senior citizens with poor hearing to hear. The frame of the television wasn’t appealing and it might look a little complicating to the seniors at first glance. The old model didn’t contain an AVI cable plug so we installed one in for the use of DVD players, video cameras and/or game consoles. The television had way too many air vents. This probably means that the size of the television caused it to overheat a lot. The screen was too small for senior citizens to see and it also looked unappealing. The process I practiced in the project would be taking it apart, taking notes about what I saw, and drawing pictures of the different pieces in the television.

                I felt that this project was very interesting and a big learning experience for me. Through the invigorating process of taking the television apart I was taking notes of what I saw and drawing pictures as well. The whole process taught me about reverse engineering and allowed me to truly think like a real engineer. I had to take other people’s problems in consideration and make something that helped them get by in life. I saw the inside of a television which is something I’ve never done before. I actually felt like a real engineer that was making an innovation to help out senior citizens. This was a very big project that required a lot of thought.