Starting off with this project Kevin, Maxim, and I knew that we wanted to make something meaningful and not just longlisting. That is when we started thinking about what we wanted to pass on to our grandkids. Growth and life were the first few words I wrote down on my notepad. How do we connect living life to growth? That is how it started off. We thought of building three compartments with a plant in the middle for the future generations to visualize their growth the more they read and learn. The initial sketch by Maxim can be seen below.
Mood board by kevin: 
To create a sturdy, solid, and enduring construction, it was decided to work with High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), due to its adaptability in that it can be melted and formed into any shape is required; it is also the most abundant material available. Composed of many plastic boards, the initial hurdle was determining the best ways for creating moderately lengthy plastic rectangles.
With the professor’s assistance, it was discovered that the most convenient method was to melt some plastic directly in an oven. Additionally, this concept was inspired by a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpsXvO5LsTY). Several modifications to the technique demonstrated include the use of shredded plastic instead of whole plastic caps; not pressing the plastic during the heating process, but rather allowing the molten plastic to flatten naturally; and the use of an industrial dryer to accelerate the production of plastic boards.
Once the issue of making flat plastic boards was out of the way we knew where we were going from there. The process is listed below:
1. 250 grams of shredded plastic (bottle caps, HPDE) were melted in a tray in 200 degrees celsius for 25 minutes.
2. A big fan was used to cool it down faster. Since the plastic shrinks during the cooling process, it detaches itself from the aluminum tray which makes it easier to extract.
3.Once it is extracted from the tray, it is deformed to flatten it a heavy weight was used to press it down in between two pieces of wood.
4. 9 pieces were created of the dimensions 11×24 11×11. Those are then connected creating two compartments with hinges and screws making it more sturdy.
5. On the second compartment two isosceles triangles were attached to create a “pocket” for the plant.
Initially, we were considering a the project to be in a larger scale however to the lack of time and resources we faced some challenges that did not allow us to do that such as burning a few boards as they were so close to the heat source in the oven since we put 2 at a time due to lack of time as well as there being only one oven that everyone needed for the project. Pressing and cooling down time was reduced for some of the boards due to the time constraint hence not all the boards are a 100% flat. We also had to downscale going from 3 compartments to 2. At the end of the day we had so much fun and learnt a lot from this hands on experience which we were very excited about due to covid and everything being virtual for over a year now.
Special thanks to Professor Marcela Godoy, Pantelis Demetriou, and Kevin Joseph for constantly helping us and guiding us through the process .
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k7vtxI8h_3_Clw3nRCQfmXCnRqhiDE-FatmEtFRZR7E/edit?usp=sharing
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