For this activity, Andre and I chose to disassemble the large black printer. It was fairly more complicated than I expected, but most of the printer could be taken apart with a Phillips-head screw driver. Despite just how many screws there are, the total weight of all the fasteners used in the printer makes up less than a percent of the massive printer’s twenty-five pound weight.

The large plastic cladding covering most of the printer contributes a much more significant portion of its mass. Most of the outer body panels could be easily snapped off of the plastic latches used to secure them in place, leading us to believe that the printer could have been hand-assembled. The hidden complexities of the printer revealed themselves as we dug deeper and required more use of the screwdriver. We found multiple circuit boards and complicated moving parts, such as the device that actually prints the ink on the paper, and a gear assembly in the printer’s upper tray.

Some other surprises included the discovery of a small speaker and what appears to be a block of foam near the printer’s electric motor. We can speculate the various chimes and alerts the printer might have needed to make were handled by the speaker and the foam was used to help protect the printer motor from a fall.