The electronic we dissected was a
radio alarm clock. We chose it because it seemed to have a lot of functionality
and could connect to various things, including the iPod, usb, memory card,
stereo and the radio. We were interested to see how these things linked to the
alarm clock and how the two speakers on the side connected to everything else.
After some trouble of opening the device up (two screws were hidden beneath
rubber feet), we were met with a tangled mess.
Wires from one board connected with
two boards and the wires on that board were connected to yet another board.
After unscrewing the electric innards from the plastic cover, we could finally
see the inner workings more clearly and try to understand the connections.
There were 5 distinct boards. One contained the screen and buttons, while two
others were assumed to be the power boards that got power from the battery and
wall socket.
According to our concept map, the
all the inputs would have to route through a computer, get sorted and sent to
the display and the output. Therefore, we assumed that the remaining two boards
were the cpu. What surprised us the most about the gadget was that even though
the outside looked like a sleek black ball, the inside was a jumbled mess.
Another unexpected finding was that
contrary to our initial guess that there was only one cpu circuit board, there
were two. We later found out that they were different “smartness”.
Functions that needed more processing were connected to the “smarter”
cpu, while the simpler functions connected to the other. Both were
interconnected so that communication could occur.
We were also really curious about
the speakers and were excited to dissect them, only to be disappointed by a
very simple contraption consisting of only two pieces. On the other hand, it
was interesting to see how the buttons connected to the circuit board and how
it functioned. There were actual buttons on the circuit board, but a plastic
piece covered over it to give the buttons a better appearance. The plastic
piece had tiny feet on the other side to raise it up a certain distance from
the circuit board. There were three per button, two long and one short. The two
long feet were in charge of maintaining distance while the short one connected
to the mobile part of the plastic and could press down on the button
underneath.
Lastly, we found that there were
many plastic pieces in between each circuit board. The plastic had two
functions, the primary one was to keep the pieces attached to the plastic shell
as some boards had to be flush to the surface (screen and buttons). The other
function we guessed was that it was to keep the boards from rubbing against
each other and damaging the pieces on them.
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| Knolling |
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| Diagram |
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