Reverse engineering of water filters

This paper focuses on the innovative use of portable water purification units to introduce concepts of reverse engineering to a freshman class. All engineering students from the four engineering disciplines namely Civil, Chemical, Electrical and Mechanical share a common engineering clinic class. This class is a major hallmark of the Rowan engineering program. The theme of the Freshman Clinic class in the spring semester is reverse engineering of commercial products. Students in teams of four or five spend an entire semester learning about engineering fundamentals such as fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, thermodynamics and engineering materials. They are also exposed to intellectual property rights, safety and ethics, ergonomics and environmental considerations in engineering design.