Reverse Engineered Object: Week 1 + 2 and Statement

 Reverse Engineered Project

Week 1 + 2 and Statement

(Week 1)

For the project, I am reverse engineering a toy helicopter. I seen it and already knew I wanted to try my hand at it. my first week felt very frustrating. There was a lot of times where just setting up the project was a big endeavor, especially how I would translate my real measurements and putting them into Rhino. I didn't want to pick something too easy, I wanted to really challenge myself with this project and that definitely was the case for the first week

I started with the main kinda rail/platform thingy, and that was probably the worst part to start in for me. It took me really long to make just even just the rectangle. I was starting to find there was complicated small geometry that was in these part. It stalled me for a while,

definitely a lot of trial of error in making these tiny parts look like the actual thing. I think I was just getting in the swing of things too. It felt a lot slower at the start then it does right now, I found I had to make each section of this part into a solid, then extrude it to the right measurements then Boolean union the parts together. This is how I would also create the subsequent parts of the model. It just felt a lot better for me to extrude only certain parts and put them together rather than extrude the whole thing and work with that model.

There was many times I had to start over because I felt like I had made a wrong move or because I had to rethink certain measurements. Most of it did attribute to how I was tackling bringing the parts into 3d at the first stages. I felt like I couldn't just redo or change without going back and doing the model over again so I eventually just did that for some parts, mostly with the rail part of the helicopter model. 

Eventually a lot of my problem solving came from thinking about the model differently and visualizing other ways to achieve my end result when working on some parts. That's how I thought just to make each different part of the model into it's own object, and from there I can just add it to the whole. The process just went a lot faster after that.

This is when I started on some of the first smaller gears for my project, and I think working with the circular parts felt a lot more manageable for me, as opposed to just jumping right into the complicated parts.

It wasn't until the end of the first week where knowing how these tools and commands worked made the whole difference depending on what part I was been working on. For me it was almost like the project we did before with the technical drawings, when I measured, I had to basically make my own technical drawing. I really had to think for a way these complicated objects would be observed and function as a whole, then translating that into Rhino for the projects. I have some of doodles for the measurements I made included here and wayyy below.

(Week 2)

After this, I definitely just started with more of the smaller parts of the toy helicopter. I was even able to break it open more, revealing more parts for me. It was mostly gears inside. Doing this helped give me a better idea of the model as a whole, especially when thinking about when we're gunna need to explode out model.

During this time in the process, Making good measurements for these objects felt a lot better. I wasn't so unsure about the numbers I was putting in after, as I became more well known with the calipers and the software itself. There was so much less figuring out and more so trying different things to see what eventually works and is most precise to my real life model. Getting radius corners was the super hard part, sometimes eyeing was just the better option.

I started measuring and putting in my numbers for the helicopter blade, some tiny metal poles that connect the wheels and the blade, and most of the gears. The helicopter blades feel like they are going to be a bit tricky, but I made just a rough 3d model for now. It will need to dip on the inside of the blades so that is really the hard part to work with. The rest if the tiny parts were pretty much straight forward, mostly gears and wheels.

I did most of my small gears, just need the last one, and clean up the rails and helicopter blades. I'm going to leave the box casing and helicopter outside shell for last, as they seem to be the most complicated structures in my project. Not going to lie they seem a bit intimidating to me but I'm ready to conquer this project.

I already know the tricky part is going to be the assembly for me, just thinking about those smaller parts and how it's going to all fit together. Assigning them different layers for the models too.

So far, I think I might've just picked a project that was a bit too much in scope for my ability, but I still really want to finish it. I hope I can get 1 more week to do the finishing touches and just make it all good.