Paper. Something that has been around for thousands of years is getting reverse engineering treatment to help save the planet.
At the helm of the operation is trained electrical engineer Mahbub Sumon from Narayanganj, Bangladesh.
In 2018, he and three friends founded Shalbrikhkho and started their first project to create eco-friendly paper that gives back to the earth.
They dubbed their creation, Bonkagoj, a bio-friendly product with embedded seeds that will sprout when the paper is discarded or ends up in a landfill.
Sumon is marketing the project and Bonkagoj through Facebook from his home in Narayanganj where Bonkagoj is small-batch produced – but with far-reaching clientele.
The production method of the paper is reverse engineering at its finest – dismantling the entire production process of something, then figure out how to make it better and align it with the needs of 2021.
The paper is made from the mush of paper waste which is reset before being sold containing 11 or 16 different kinds of seed embedded in the fibrous sheets.
The seeds in question are either vegetables or flowering plants.
Sumon’s initial thought was ways to combat deforestation, but what the paper also does when it is allowed to sprout with region-specific fauna is to stimulate the soil where it is discarded by reinvigorating the biodome.
Speaking to a Bangladesh newspaper, The Daily Star, Sumon said he initially experimented with permaculture, and the idea was that if a paper is made from trees, why can’t discarded paper simply become trees again.
Inspired by this reverse engineering that offers eco-friendly results, Sumon is also working on plastic bags made from potato skins that offer the same use as plastic bags – but are biodegradable.
These sort of projects not only help the environment but also shows how reverse engineering is helpful within the engineering field. Engineers sometimes don’t need to look for new solutions, they sometimes have to improve the solutions that already exist.
What is reverse engineering exactly?
As a group of engineering students from the United Arab Emirates University describes it, reverse engineering is to collect a whole engineering design of a physical part or item and then recreate it with improvements.
The process allows engineers to firstly fix broken parts of a mechanical or electrical system by knowing exactly where each piece fits in a system and how it is used.
For the modern engineer, reverse engineering would include the process of obtaining a geometric CAD model of measurements when scanning a physical object or model, according to Ramandeep Singh, a mechanical engineering professor at CT Institute of Engineering Management and Technology Jalandhar in Punjab, India.
In his paper, A Case Study of Improving the Rockshaft of Tractor using Reverse Engineering, Ramandeep believes reverse engineering is the process of discovering the various principles of a device or object and even a system by going through every aspect of it.
From analyzing its structure to function, the reverse engineering process is only complete when there’s an ability to reconstruct the object.
In another paper, A Review of Reverse Engineering Theories and Tools, Singh explores the theory further by highlighting that forward engineering is important, but reverse engineering is equally beneficial because many developed systems exist that will have errors or have room for improvement.
He goes on to conclude that the adoption of reverse engineering technology has been slow, but that it is needed because it ties in with forward engineering – since it allows engineers to look back on anything, including data engineering, to find better solutions for the future.
Wake up and smell the coffee, or rather VDI 2221 Method
A cup of morning brew might seem straightforward, but a group of engineering students from Jakarta examined how reverse engineering made an expresso machine better.
Their paper published in 2021, Improving the Capacity of Espresso Machine Using Reverse Engineering Method and VDI 2221 Method, maintains that reverse engineering has a multitude of benefits, but when it comes to making and selling coffee, it can allow small businesses that cannot afford expensive equipment to offer higher production outset.
The Deutscher Ingeneure Verein (VDI) in 2221 method is a simple way to approach reverse engineering since it aims to optimize problem-solving, better the use of materials, technology and considers the economic conditions of a product.
The problem the students aimed to address was improving an expresso machine’s performance and function by increasing its design efficiency. Each component of the machine was studied to see how they could speed up the coffee brewing process with the modification of existing parts.
One of the major changes was increasing the machine’s water tank capacity from 1.7L to 2.3L, which effectively increased the cups of coffee the machine was able to produce in a single water refill and using the same amount of coffee powder that produced 1.7L of coffee.
The interest is however in how the application of the VDI 2221 Method helped better the machine, and how their engineering knowledge increased efficiency.
The students found that their research was able to:
- Use reverse engineering to disassemble and reassemble the machine
- Use engineering design methods to solve problems and optimize materials with better technology and improve the economic condition of the device.
- Use the VDI 2221 Method to clarify the task, have a conceptual design, embody the design and focus on design detail.
The VDI 2221 method is the same process Mahbub used to better the life cycle of something as simple as paper – showing not only the value of reverse engineering but how effective it can better everyday objects and items.
For the students from Jakarta, they conducted several experiments with the time settings of the coffee machine. Initially, the machine could perform eight repetitions with one tank of water, as they made improvements the machine was able to perform 14 repetitions.
Except for expanding the water tank, simple solutions included modifying the machine’s waste tray to carry more coffee grounds.
In all, they believe reverse engineering showed that they could improve the machine’s functionality in a restaurant setting because staff would need to fill the water tank less and won’t have to clear waste as often.
In essence, simple modifications saved time and cost.
