Ying and Holly Knoll a Calculator!

For our knolling assignment, Ying and I took apart a Sharp EL-233S handheld basic calculator. While it was simple enough to remove the screws from the outer shell, the part of the process that required the most negotiation was prying apart the shell by wearing away the compressed plastic parts that bonded one half of the shell through the processor chip and to the other half. After that, like a shucked oyster, the calculator revealed its squishy innards.

We had already expected that the processor chip, as the "brain" of the calculator, handles the logic of its calculations. Still, on its own it does not handle translating the physical input into binary logic, or outputting an LCD display. We were surprised to discover that the calculator contains a membrane that not just provides the tactile feedback one gets from pressing the buttons, but also contains the carbon that conducts with the back of the processor chip, thus relaying the user's input to the brain. 

The logic of the processor chip as well as the mechanics behind the LCD screen are described below in our function diagram:

Jered and Ciera | Knolling | VHS Tape Rewinder

For the knolling project, we went to Value Village on Capitol Hill. There was a wide variety of cheap household electronics to rummage through, from slide projectors to telephones to kids' toys. We selected a VHS tape rewinder built in 1989 by Solidex Inc.

After disassembling and knolling the object, we were surprised by just how many individual parts there were. A VHS tape rewinder seems like it would be a simple thing, and yet there were dozens of screws, tabs, wheels and other pieces.

Use of the rewinder starts by pressing a button on the front to open the tape carriage. Inserting a tape and closing the carriage causes a microswitch to be depressed, which starts the DC motor and rewinds the tape. The rewind spindle is connected via rubber belt to an analog counter which keeps track of how far the tape has been rewound. When the tape has been fully rewound it is ejected automatically.

Gaming Steering Wheel - Chip & Daniel

Knolling a gaming steering wheel as an exercise to map electronics' components. Chip and Daniel mainly focused on visually organizing the flows of input and output. 

This specific kind of electronic has emphasis in both analog and digital input. Starting at the steering wheel as the user's interface, the physical input is translated from gears in the wheel to  a potentiometer (analog), and data input through several buttons (digital).  

The circular plastic component at the center of the illustration shows the layered arrangement of the button   - plastic cap -> silicone pad membrane -> copper contact pad (on board).  

A couple of components that create output are a vibrating motor at the base of the steering wheel (to emulate the idling of a car), and a spring in the wheel as a physical resistance to user input.

Lastly, the user's input travels thru the cable as data to the connector. 

Knolled Object | Emergency Radio

Roy Kim, Ian Fike

Below is an knolled emergency radio with all of the components except the hard case. Through the exploration of the device, we found that the vast majority of the girth of the device was due to the dynamo. We were unable to explore the dynamo completely but understand that is powered by a combination of magnets and springs. 

Knolling - Emergency Radio

Schematic - Emergency Radio

Knolled Object | Blood Pressure Monitor | Albert Lui

I knolled an oldschool blood pressure monitor that I bought for 10$ at Value Village. I actually gained a deeper appreciation for this kind of tinkering exercise because I learned a lot from it. Simply from taking it apart, I learned about what the different components probably do and how they relate to each other.

For inputs, I have switches, buttons, and I guess also my pulse creating variations in the air pressure going into the device.
 
For outputs, I have the digital LCD screen and the little record printer.

I basically pieced together this thing like an information puzzle. 12 must have been the device that pumps air into the cuff because it's connected to it via air tubes/hoses. The cuff tube is also connected to 9, which must be the component that somehow measures my heart rate/blood pressure by detecting air pressure. I also figured that the printer is run by a single motor which dispenses the paper (must be a special kind of paper that gets marked when heated like receipts because I found no ink whatsoever- I actually verified this by running the tip of a hot glue gun against it).

Knolled object diagram.

Connections diagram.

Knolling Assignment - Scott Ichikawa & Catherine Lim

For the knolling assignment, Catherine and I took apart an iceless wine cooler and a blood pressure monitor. Each of these small devices had some really interesting parts and pieces. One thing that we learned is that we really had no idea how these things worked! The iceless wine cooler had an interesting Peltier Cooler that was connected to heat sink that controlled the cooling area.

Check out out knolling job and diagrams! Let us know if you have any questions.

Always be knolling: Cannon Printer/Scanner

Knolled Cannon Pixma printer + Scanner

So for this knolling assignment I took on something somewhat ambitious - knowing I could
use the belts, motors and limit switch from a printer I chose to tackle a Cannon pixma
printer + scanner. I was confident it would have the most useful parts for use down the 
line, however I wasn't quite prepared for the sheer number of parts inside this thing. For
those of you interested in what it used to look like (because right now it's hard to tell) the photo below is what it used to look like — although the one I picked up for $6 at value village had seen better days, and a big glob of dried ink was a pretty obvious indicator of why it was there.

Original Cannon Pixma printer + Scanner (you'll need to add the wear and tear with your imagination)