Students disect hard drives, learn about design

From left: Lauren Cwiklo, another student and Nate Delson, a lecturer in the MAE department, look at a hard drive.

What's in a hard drive? A lot of lessons in good design, it turns out. That's what Nate Delson, a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, wanted to teach a group of students who turned out for a "hard-drive dissection" session in the Design Studio at EBU II Thursday, April 18.

"Hard drives are fascinating," Delson said. 

They're probably the most precise devices anyone has in their homes, Delson added. "There's a lot of very precise design and machining that goes into a hard drive," he said. He added he hoped taking apart the hard drives would teach students about good design practices.

Mechanical engineering students weren't the only ones to turn out for the session. Students in environmental engineering, engineering science, cognitive science and bioengineering turned out too. "It's really interesting to see how stuff works," said Priya Bisarya, a bioengineering major. The exercise took her back to a childhood memory, when she and her father took apart the family's VCR.

Chris Cassidy from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering provided power supplies and use of the Design Studio for the session. Earl "Bucky" Reed, from the Office of Engineering Computer, provided the hard drives. The session's student coordinators were Ngoc "Naomi" Diep and Jake Malone.

From left: Kelly Mark, Miranda Bohm and Brian Kim examine a hard drive.

Masato Koizumi uses a screwdriver to open a hard drive.

Elioth Fraijo opens a hard drive.

From left: Tanima Shukla, Priya Bisarya and Fabian Ramirez examine hard drive components.

Pauline Laikijrung poses with a hard drive component.