Weapon( Retractable Knife)- Designs

To address the problem of building a retractable knife, I began the design process by making a series of sketches of various types of different knives. The director’s initial preference was to have a flip open knife that would then retract into its handle. My initial design for this was flawed by the fact that once the knife had been flipped open, I couldn’t design a catch to keep the knife in the upright position. Later, I decided that this problem could be remedied with the use of a snap open ruler, which would be placed inside the blade. I created another design for a switchblade, which was very similar to your basic retractable dagger, except that it included a latch mechanism that would hold the blade in until the trigger was pressed. I decided to build both knives at about the same time, in case one failed, I would have work on the other progressing.