Activity (Hands-On)Grades 3 - 5
Disassemble a Click Pen
Students disassemble and analyze retractable pens. Through the process of "reverse engineering," they learn how the ink pens work.
How do retractable pens work?Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=pen&ex=1#ai:MP900400353|mt:2|
On occasion, engineers find an item or even design something without fully understanding how or why it works. When this happens, it is helpful to work backwards by analyzing the finished design to see how the parts work together. Performing reverse engineering by analyzing the interactions between parts contributes to a better understanding of how something works.
- How a pen works by taking it apart, analyzing its components and its function.
- How different components of a system work together to reach a desired function (in this case, a retractable ballpoint pen).
- The value of learning by disassembling products to discover how they work.
- Recognizing a design requirement (such as capped pen vs. click pen).
- Skills: analyzing and organizing variables to investigate how a system works, technical discussion about how the object works using new vocabulary.
- Other potential learning areas: compression of a spring, history of writing utensils.