Uncategorized

The following websites are a good starting point. 

• https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mihaib/presentation-rules.html
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1857815/
• https://www.pharmacoepi.org/pub/76a123f3-c419-8689-f823-a38e28f5fd02

INCLUDE IN YOUR CASE STUDY PRESENTATION:

• Introduction
• Data collected: interviews, observations, questionnaires, etc.
• Results: Description of what you found through your investigation.
• Discussion: Explanation of the significance of the study and what can be learnt from it. Invite the audience to participate in the discussion. Maybe propose a question.
• Conclusion: Sum up the main points from the findings and discussion.

DESIGNING A PRESENTATION

GIVING THE PRESENTATION

Description of the process, experiments, failures and successes. Your inspiration behind, how your project can be implemented in Shanghai or any other place. Finally, how your project can educate people and raise awareness of environmental issues.

Initial Thought Process:

Prior to taking this course and prior to taking Sustainable Fashion, I was not as socially aware of our environmental issues. I had some form of an understanding but truthfully never felt had a form of connection or reason to care. It sounds bad, but it was not until my best friend created a company to help plastic consuming that I began to take not only an interest but have a better understanding of what it really means to be sustainable and breaking down that word. The word sustainable is one that can be shaped in many different forms. It’s such a broad term that I feel that many people tend to hear this term and not have a complete understanding of what it really means. This is why for my final project I felt that taking a more educational route was the right approach for me.

Initially I wanted to create a form of installation in collaboration with a Sustainability in Fashion event happening in Shanghai. I found out that many venues do not recycle their bottles and have these viable materials that can be continued to be of use. I gained inspiration from the team that came and gave a talk about their work in Tanzania. I myself took efforts around my house to upcycle different materials such as a bottle and use it as a vase. As well as take wine bottles like the team in Tanzania and repurpose them to be used as vases and pots for my plants. I wanted to create something and show these venues specifically the venue collaborating with this event how one can take something and put it to to other uses. 

However, after breaking down our ideas in class it was suggested that rather than doing this outside of school to do something within the school. This not only was a suggestion I very much agreed with but it made me reflect on how we could do more on campus to become more aware as a student body and do more within our community to become more environmentally aware. 

Process/Execution:

Final Product: 

Final Reflection:

⚠️This is the old version that I could not find but now I find it. You can just skip it and scroll down.

During the class, I didn’t really start the experiment, since the experiment needs the mold so I spent most of my time doing the mold. Special thanks to Marcela and Andy, I could not finish the mold with their help.

So first I learned from the video of making recycled paper and drew a draft. Andy told me that we could simply make the mold by cutting by ourselves, we chose thinner woods and cut them into 30cms/27cms long pieces. After finishing the frame of the mold, what net I should use became a problem. The window screen net I have is too big to filter the paper thick liquid. Marcela helped me find some left materials of the trash fashion show, which looks like nylon net and water can go through it. Therefore, after using the big staple stapling the net on the frame, the basic mold was finished. There is still a problem: the surface of the net is even, so the paper might not be flat enough. I will test later and update the result of my experiment.

Draft of the mold

The final frame

Choosing wood

Window screen net is toooo big

The leftover materials: nylon net

Some tapes on the frame in case the wood pieces will hurt people

The mold

The surface of the net is uneven

What’s more, for the thought of cooperating with the campus store, I went to ask for the sales of notebooks. The worker there told me that they don’t have a record of how many books they sell every week/month (maybe they just don’t want to tell me 🙁 ) but it is definitely not a small number.

Update:

I FAILED. 

I know that usually, the experiment won’t succeed for one time but I really didn’t expect it to be that hard.

Ingredients:

Paper (mostly from paper shedder)

A lot of water

Tools:

Mold

Big Plastic Container

Sponge

Blender

Iron

Gloves

Cloth

setup

Here is the video of my main experiment process. (If watching the video is too boring  please listen to this)

The main process:

cutting paper – put them into the blender – add water (the first time there is too little water so I added twice) – pour the thick liquid into the container – put the mold into the liquid and get a layer – dry – dry- dry- take the paper off – dry – you got it!

Fallen pieces of my paper on the iron

Pieces

Wet leftover

Bad edges…

Even worse when I dry it…

Final Product yeah

During the experiment, I met a few challenges. The first one is to choose the best mode from the blender… I know this sounds a little silly but it is really important. At first, I chose the “fast soybean milk” mode, but it is heating, and the blending process is not successive, with vapor coming out and the whole machine is shaking. Later I switch to “juice” model  and “icy smoothie”, both of them work pretty well. 

Another one is which side to use of the mold: I need to put the one with the net below and the side with net up, and I mixed it several times. Therefore when trying to peel it down, it is hard for me. I think another key element is the unevenness of the net. I am going to talk about it in future improvements in the coming two (1.5)  weeks.

Future improvements:

1. The net is not working well. I am buying a better piece of net from Taobao, and I will test again if that works better.

2. I am also buying a better sponge, the one that can absorb water rather than for cleaning. I will buy a big towel again to help absorb water

3. When I first get the thick liquid layer out of the container, it was a little sticky, so I thought that I might have to add more water next time.  But when I was drying it, it took me so long and there was too much water. Hence, the critical problem so far is to find the balance of water.

4. It takes toooooo long… This piece of paper cost me more than 4 hours. I think with practice I can reduce it to around 1 hour but it is still really long. Remaking is not an easy thing.

By Joyce Zheng

Final Project: Remade Paper 

Inspirations

I can often see my friends complaining in social media that they are producing “academic trash” every day. I see piles of paper go to the professor’s paper box which collects essays, but then where the paper go? Probably a real trash bin. What’s more, Tracey once posted a message in the group chat says if anyone wants the poster as scratch paper. Countless posters are hung on the whiteboard and sometimes they just fall and frighten me. I learned the basic knowledge of making paper (Cai Lun) when I was in primary school, and I started to think if I can do something about paper for my final project.

I looked up some researches and reports online about the phenomenon of paper waste. From “Paper Steps on Campus”, “Today in the United States only 50% of office paper is recovered for recycling. The majority of the rest is lost to landfills or incinerators.” Going back to the guest lecture from Mr.Brubaker and the known pollution influence of incinerators, paper can also be regarded as a significant polluting source. Besides, this passage argues that “47% of campuses surveyed have set goals to improve purchasing environmentally sound goods. Environmentally-conscious purchasing can result in less waste, increased cost-saving measures, energy conservation resulting in positive climate change, and overall awareness on campus of the necessity to conserve and reduce.” The article raises examples of creating visual installation by collecting printed but not taken away paper on the campus to remind people of their waste on paper, and so on. I went to the campus store to ask how many notebooks they sell every week/month, they didn’t give me a specific number, but “pretty much”. Bioenergy Consult also provides different methods of reusing paper, including making your subscription digital and double-sided printing, which I think is feasible inside a college (if we don’t consider the energy-use on your digital devices). In conclusion, paper waste is a serious thing around the world, and it cannot be ignored inside colleges as well. 

Experiments

For the specific process of remaking paper, I first go to Youtube to see if there’s any tutorial. The videos help me a lot and are one of my biggest inspirations. Following the tutorial, I made two deckles (the first one does not work well because it is too big) with Marcela and Andy’s help. I met a few challenges when making the deckle, including the size of it and also the material selection of the filter screen. 

The deckle I use for the final experiment

I mainly had 3 big experiments on the making of paper. For the first experiment, I tried to see if I can make paper out of printed paper and I recorded most parts of my process in a video.

Check the first experiment and video

For the second experiment, I remade a deckle and tested the application of different pigments. I added around 1 drop of violet pigment into the blender and repeat the experiment process in experiment 1. 

Check the second experiment  

So far, I was not satisfied with what I got through the two experiments. For the final experiment, I took suggestions from Marcela and Ben to use the heat press to dry my paper and it worked pretty well. I also used a pile of posters of a certain color to test if it can give the remade paper a certain color and added leaves as decorations into the paper.

Check the third experiment 

For the final product, after a long time (about 3 days) of drying and flattening in a magazine, I got the final product pretty successfully. The texture on it and the touch are pretty good despite some fissure on the paper caused by the drying process. And due to limitation of time, I cannot make enough pieces of paper that can form a notebook: but they do work well as postcards. Sopia suggested to me that I could make a journal out of this kind of paper which would be amazing, which is also good advice. 

Final Presentation

Experiment 2 paper

Experiment 3 paper

Tools

A written piece of paper

IMA Show

Implementation and Significance

Regarding how the project can be implemented in Shanghai or any other place, it is easy to do as long as you follow the tutorial. Personally speaking, using an old photo frame would be much easier to implement than making a deckle than yourself since not everyone has the tools that we have in the wood lab. All you need for the experiment are shredder (if you don’t have, just cut the paper into pieces as small as possible), the deckle (photo frame would work well), blender, drying tool (towel, sponge) and water. This can be easily done at home. However, concerning the fact that you don’t have that much waste paper in your home, it will be more feasible at schools and offices. I am not sure if I make good pieces of paper out of old paper can educate people and raise awareness of environmental issues in what way, but when remaking paper, I would assume that people will think “oh old paper can function and be reused in this way…” and then, maybe, reflecting on their use of paper. I am thinking about printing words like “this used to be 4 posters, and they are wasted” on the paper I made so that people who use them are aware of its origin and the environmental problem paper has brought.

Conclusion

In my first week response, I said: “But the plastic pollution is a global issue, and all the human beings who have used plastic should be responsible. (Though I don’t know what we should do either :p).” I still – somehow don’t know what we should do, but no matter for the art installation I have done for my midterm project or the experiment process I do for my final project, they function as a tool to raise people’s awareness and seek a new way to recycle/reuse existing materials. People may not know what they are doing, but should be on the way to explore what they should do. Going back to the project, to be honest, I am a little surprised by the final paper I got, they are in pretty good quality and I never thought that I can turn a few old posters into a piece of paper like this. 

There are further improvements can be done as well. An IMA professor (Prof. Minsky?) suggests to me that I can do more research on fiber: can I remake something else?  From Wikipedia, “some people and groups advocate using field crop fiber or agricultural residues instead of wood fiber as being more sustainable”, and carbohydrates including cellulose and hemicellulose, lignin, proteins, SiO2 are all ingredients that can be used in pulping. Therefore, testing a new recipe for making paper is feasible. The problem is since the paper is a huge consumption, the current technology to produce paper is possibly the one with the lowest cost. 

About raising the awareness part as I have mentioned, I once considered using all the waste paper to make an installation by the technique I found from Ten Thousand Villages. The website provides many fantastic ideas about how to deal with waste paper.  However, since it is a commercial product, I didn’t find a tutorial and go back to remade paper. But it is a good direction for remaking paper. Eva also suggested that I should try to remake the remade paper which is an amazing idea, but since what I got before the remade paper is just the thing inside the blender with more water, I think it will not be a problem to remake from remade paper. 

Paper artwork from TTV

Paper artwork from TTV

The mud-like paper pulp

The class shows me so many aspects that I will never know living inside the “beautiful” and “clean” city or academic building. The waste we produce every day is beyond my imagination, and though I have heard of the serious pollution in China brought by the burning of straw, how we treat those trash still shocks me. We cannot launch an initiative globally, but we can have campaign inside the school, and collect useful trash like paper/plastic we make every day, use our bottles instead of plastic bottles, and think about what we can do with the left plastic treasure. 

At the end of the end, sincere thanks to everyone who has helped me during the class 😀

RMC

Attached is my documentation and my process journal throughout the semester. I always like having hard copies of my work and writings, in this journal you will see documentations as well as quotes and important takeaways from readings and daily encounters. 

Re-Frisbee

Sofia Shockman & Eva Solo

Part 1: Brainstorming

For my final project, I wanted to focus on the youth of Shanghai. I was inspired by the video Marcela showed us in class that depicted the kids who brought their toys to a plastic shredding machine and then produced new material to make a new product. Childhood is a definitive moment in life that has the potential to shape tendencies for the rest of the individuals’ life. So I think that part of the experience of learning about this course and how we can actually make an impact can start at the beginning stages of life in order to create habits and a lifestyle for future generations.

I toyed around with the idea to create a lego set out of recycled plastic. Lego is already creating sustainable building blocks and it is a company that is almost run 100% ethically in terms of material sourcing and employee treatment. This seemed like a great idea, but the downside was creating molds to make the lego pieces because it would have been at least 5 different molds or else it defeats the purpose of making legos if they only come in one shape. I also wanted to host a workshop that could educate children in Shanghai by telling them to bring in their old plastic toys and plastic waste laying around the house and we would then shred it, stick it in the premade molds and then heat it up.

Then, I began talking to my classmates and it wasn’t until Eva told me that she was also interested in working with some sort of children product that we came across a frisbee from Patagonia that is made out of 15% recycled plastic. We wanted to challenge that and do a disc out of 100% recycled plastic. Thus we took on a project that we named: Re-Frisbee.

Part 2: Begin ideation and experimentation

We began on our journey to construct a frisbee made out of 100% recycled plastic with the intent of children to use in mind. We first began by gathering products together. We used plastic #2 (high-density polyethylene HDPE) and #4 (low-density polyethylene LDPE). We collected many water bottle caps, soap bottles, plastic grocery bags, squeezable bottles, clear colored bottles, milk jugs, detergent bottles, juice bottles, and toiletries. We deconstructed many water bottles to take the top part off that is a different plastic from the whole rest of the water bottle. 

Then we proceeded to shred the plastic using the plastic shredder. This part was fun, I may just be weird but there is something mesmerizing and oddly satisfying about watching the plastic being shredded. We also made sure to collect the mico-plastics that fell out of the bin and stick into our bag.

Part 3: Frisbee experimentation 

Now that we had gathered our materials, we decided to begin the process of testing out the frisbee. We debated on making a frisbee mold, but the purpose of our product was making something that a child could also repeat at home. We decided to use the pans that we found in the makerspace. We found a medium size pan and a small size pan that we used for all of our experiments. 

Trial #1 

After we heated the oven and greased up the pan we spread the plastic shreds all over to fill the pan, but not excessively. Then we waxed the outside of the smaller pan and placed it on top to press down the plastic and give it more curvature. But we added way too much plastic into this round and did not press enough pressure on it so it ended up being very clunky and heavy.

Trial #2

In our second trial, we attempted to use plastic bags in order to correct the weight from the previous trial. We mixed plastic bags and plastic shreds together and placed them into the greased up- medium-sized pan and placed it into the oven at 180 degrees Celcius. The result was a complete and utter failure because we realized that plastic bags were too think to be left in the oven at a high temperature for so long. 

After this little test, we went back to our original material of shredded plastic which did not include bags. We ran the same exact procedure as the first trial by waxing the medium pan and placing the shreds inside of it and placed it into the oven. This time we left the small-sized pan inside of the oven longer than the first one to make a larger indent into the disc. It actually ended up working out very well after we took it out of the oven and pressed it. The only problem was that the bottom was a tad burnt because we needed to adjust the time since it was a much smaller portion of plastic. But the size was just right, it looked much easier for a child to grasp and play with.

Trial #3

On our third test, we went back to the larger mid-sized pan because we were looking for more curvature than the last couple of tests. We ended up creating a much heavier model than our last products because we had filled up the side of the pans all the way so that there would be a lot more grasp room to hold the frisbee. Basically just extending the curvature to give it more of a frisbee shape and feel. It just ended up making it heavier.

Trial #4

Our last trial ended up having the best weight and design. The size is still a tad too big for children, but luckily when we did user testing it turned out being a decent shape. 

We then polished all of the discs and made a sticker design with our logo on them. We really took on the spirit of creating a product, especially after we did user testing on children. It makes the finished product come together even more concise because you can prove that it works. We created our design and used the vinyl cutter to cut our stickers out. Here are the children who were kind enough to throw a frisbee around the cafeteria with me!

The best part about making these frisbees was when we got to test them out in the hallway after they cooled down. This was a crucial aspect of our project that made us consider many different factors in the process. Weight was the hardest to achieve, balancing and evenly distributing the plastic to all sides was difficult to achieve. That is also why our frisbee looks wonkier on some sides. Something to consider moving forward would definitely be to make a mold. Even though it is harder and does make it a little harder to follow along, it cuts downtime and resources that one would be experimenting with in the first place. 

We have also created a zine for children ages 7-12 who can read with fun facts and a step by step tutorial on how they can make a frisbee at home. The only thing they wouldn’t have is a shredder, so we just said that one can cut the plastic up into small pieces and place them compactly into the pan. A zine is also an easy tool for the Shanghai market because children and parents are enforcing the education of English as well as sustainability throughout the city. The next step in our project would have been to host a workshop and invite children after sending them the link to our zine. 

I think this project sheds light on the issues of consumption and consumerism. It also targets kids, which are becoming more and more aware of the environment around them as well as the catastrophic issues that they are dealing with growing up. It also brings attention to the misconception that 100% recycling is hard or unattainable to do at home. More than anything that Eva and I wanted to achieve was to begin a dialogue about making something that kids can do and be more aware of when they consume or when they buy toys to also make them question whether they are consuming in a sustainable manner. Frisbee was the medium we used because it is something that I grew up with and I loved playing in the park out in the open, but I also think it brings attention to the outdoors and mother nature. 

I want to thank Marcela Godoy, Eva Solo, our Re-made in China class, and Emma and Ally (the 2 little girls who tested out our frisbees) for all of the guidance, feedback, and support throughout this project. I really enjoyed making it and also the process of understanding my material, which was #2 and #4 plastic, really well. I became an expert in melting and molding plastic as well as polishing it to give it any look. I am satiated with the finished products that we have made, but if we had more time and planned it out more efficiently, we could have made a mold with our logo and we would not have wasted materials on the sticker.

Thanks again for everything, Marcela! Twas a sensational semester learning and diving deeper into a world of trash.

We continued our experimentation phase by testing out versions of the frisbee that differed. 

The first trial was conducted using the medium-sized pan with the small-sized pan pressed inside. We used plastic #2 and #4 and spread thinly. The finishing product was a good first phase because it felt like a frisbee with the exception of the sides not being curved enough.

In the second trial, we tested using plastic bags that were also #2 and #4. We hypothesized that since the material of the plastic bag was light and airy it would produce the same effect for the frisbee. It turned out being a total failure because of many reasons: 1.) we probably should have adjusted the heat to a lower temperature 2.) it was so thin that it needed more plastic bags than we originally collected and cut.

We decided to mix the plastic bags with the shredded plastic we had to make a cleaner result, but it also completely failed and the finished product ended up looking like taffy that we had to pull apart. Very gooey!

In our third trial we decided to use a smaller pan to create a shape for a child to use. So we used the small pan that we had been using to press and we repeated the same steps of waxing and covering. The oven was still at 180 degrees Celcius and we kept an eye to not leave in for too long. 

It turned out to be completely burnt at the bottom because it was a smaller pan and had less plastic to heat. So not a total failure but the size was not that much more different than that of the first trial.

Our fourth trial was tested using the same methodology from the first trial. It also turned out fairly well, it was just a little too heavy for throwing. 

Name: Eva Solo

Date: 16/12/19 

Professor: Marcela Godoy

Part 1 Brainstorming

Part 2 Inspiration

Part 3 Development

Part 4 Repetition

Part 5 Consideration

Through the first five parts, I used the journal entries to describe the entire production process from the brainstorming to the polishing of the frisbee and part 6 summarises the development concisely with complimentary visual aid. 

Part 6 Documentation

Section 1. Statement

With the inspiration of Patagonia’s Logo Disk, a frisbee from 15% recycled plastic, Sofia and I attempted to take this model to the next step and create a frisbee from 100% recycled material. Our primary focus was to share some of the knowledge relating to discarding waste with the demographic of children, as we agreed that effective societal change can be best implemented by changing generational outlook on waste production and usage. Alongside the final ‘product’ of the frisbee, we also created a step-by-step guide on how to reproduce our creation which also included some foundational understandings of trash and its recycling to create something completely new by up-cycling waste. Our updated hypothesis for experimentation was ‘What qualities of the frisbee will allow it to be its best extent of aerodynamic?’ We looked into shape, weight, and sizing of the physical form to provide the best suited information for the guide to avoid an extensive trail-and-error when reproducing. Through this project creativity is also heavily involved, at least in our case, as we had to think of innovative ways to tackle obstacles at hand. Overall, the evaluation bellow provides a better in-depth look of the post-production assessment and the margin for improvements if more time was available.

Section 2. Description

The Frisbee

As mentioned, the Logo Disk was our primary inspiration in the realisation of a 100% recycled material frisbee. As it takes up to 500 years for plastic to decompose in landfills, we acknowledge the damage we create every time we forget our refillable water bottle and have to buy a new one from the store. What if we could use some of the plastic we would otherwise throw away towards creating something brand new. Giving plastic another life is a great way to practice up-scaling and further introducing Reusing into our daily routines instead of  constant carless consumption.

No. 2  HDPE plastics are high-density polyethylene and are most often used to produce milk containers, cleaning containers, as well as bottle caps. No. 4 LDPE plastics are low-density polyethylene and are used for bottles, bags, wrapping material. These two groups are used in the production of our frisbee and can be mixed together when melting. 

The aim was to create a frisbee shape that could be thrown from one person in the direction of another, and get to its destination without excessive efforts (a lot of strength etc.). We love frisbees because they are a fun way to get active outside and create quality socialising time in the community. Through our project we are not only aiming to educate kids how they can up-scale waste, tap into their creativity of DYIing, but also go and be active outside when the internet is creating a perfectly entertaining bubble for anyone with a connection. 

The Guide

The goal of creating a guide was providing some foundational understanding of recycling to kids as well as step-by step directions how this frisbee could be recreated. We looked into the website ReuseThisBag which provided simply worded definitions about the environmental impact of waste and decided to source this in our guide as a lot of inspiration was drawn from the website in the aesthetic formatting. Further commentary how this phase of project realisation can be improved is described in the evaluation section bellow, as it came to be the place with the most potential for alterations. Through the guide, we want to share our experience and create inspiration for others to use similar techniques in up-scaling and/or creating art from waste. 

Online Guide

Section 3. Production

A brief overview of the production steps (Pt. 4 describes our production in more detail) : collecting plastics (#2 and #4), cutting the material, shredding the pieces using the shredder, waxing the pans that stand as a mould to prevent plastic from sticking to the pans (as visible in error in the image circled black) , placing the shreds into the bigger pan – covering the base, placing second pan on top and stuffing the sizes, placing both pans into the oven for the first 10 minutes to weight down the melting plastic, take the second pan out, wait 40~50 more minutes, take the pan out, place the smaller pan back inside, place wooden cubes to create height before placing under the press, press down and wait 30-40 seconds, taking the pans out from under the press, allow time for cooling (~5 minutes), cut around the diameter of the curve for any sticking out pieces, use the drill to even the sides, use sand paper to smooth, use sand paper conveyor belt ti further smooth a flat surface of the curve, place sticker on the front, PLAY!

Section 4. Experimentation

While combining the knowledge from the Precious Plastic lecture tutorial on making stools, as well as the MIT case study on the Physics of Frisbee, we tested the recyclable frisbee production through four trails. Each aimed to focus on different qualities that would allow this prototype to be its best level of aerodynamic.

In the images for each trail, I added a self-assessed scale on the evaluation of how aerodynamic the frisbee is. The results were based on: general feel in the hand (weight; size), how precisely it flew in the directed direction, feedback from user testing. 

Trail 1. [First Trail, Test Trail]

In our first trail, we added too much material in the base of the pan with the hopes it would smoothly curve up when pressed down. We were no yet familiar with the press mechanism and had to rely on body weight to squeeze it down as much as possible. The result was thick and not equally curved throughout. It was also indented inwards (while it would be preferred to scope outwards when looking from above), the stickers in the image, as well as the side angle are good indications of how the shape formed without using a press. 

Trail 2. [Curvature&Weight]

We began this trail with the addition of plastic bags (that were #2 and #4 groups) with the shreds, to reduce the weight, but quickly learned that plastic bag melting properties were very different and melted a lot quicker. We continued this trail with just the shredded pieces, but instead of filling the base densely, we laid a fairly thin coat down and stuffed the sides with the second pan present. This is where the idea of placing the second pan into the oven for the first 10 minutes came. This trail was fairly successful, but the thickness of the base and the sides were not even, although the weight was radically reduced. 

Trail 3. [Shape]

In the third trail, we focused on achieving the shape of even and balanced material throughout the whole shape. This trail reminded me of Ben’s point during the feedback session in class ‘It might look like a frisbee, but will it fly like one’. This one definitely flew well, but I would not give this to a child due to the danger it could cause due to it being very heavy. 

Trail 4. [Size]

This trail was overall the most successful in achieving a smaller shape (used a metal bowl as the pressing mould part), as well as the evenly distributed light weight. The aesthetic of this frisbee was altered due to some burning marks and made it quite undesirable in appearance, while the best in its aerodynamic qualities.

Section 5. User Testing

We played with the frisbees ourselves, and had a great time, but were still determined to get some feedback from the targeted demographic of children. Although we originally considered 9 to 13 years of age to be our focus, we primarily chose this with the intent of the children trying to recreate the process. When it came to playing with it, all age groups are very welcomed! We found two girls (ages 7 and 9) who wanted to test our creations. Due to the time restrictions on uploading video, I added the trimmed version of a successful catch we all were very proud of! Post-play, we asked the girls how the frisbees felt, and got the response that Trail 2 and Trail 4 were our most successful developments due to the way they ‘felt in the hands, and when throwing’ which I associate with the weight and sizing of these particular trails.  

UserTesting

Section 6. Evaluation

Frisbees ranked by how successful we deemed each trail:

If more time was available some changes could further push this project in the direction of environmental awareness for a better result. Although, we were pretty close in getting what we wanted for the frisbee aerodynamic qualities, another trail could encompass the shape of T4, the approximate weight of T2 and a better developed aesthetic look (eg. T3). Where I see the most place for improvement is the realisation of the guide. The majority of our focus over the last month was geared towards the hand-on experimentation, and the guide lacked the same level of consideration. Firstly, I would acknowledge that experimentation of this complexity cannot be simply created at home and for the ‘guide portion’ of the project – would propose holding a workshop in our lab. The same guide could be used (although I would change page 3, and instead of using sourced facts would create my own summary) and taken home. With this example the steps could be described more vaguely as there would be assistance for the kids to lead them through the process, and more emphasis could be directed towards retainable information about the environment. Keeping this in mind, I don’t think a themed aesthetic would be too overwhelming as that was my main concern when just realising an online version for families to look at by them selves. 

We did user testing for our hypothesis of the flying qualities, and I asked my nine year old brother to read over the guide to see if it is accessible in language, but another improvement could be actually taking a child through the process themselves, hence the workshop idea. This development would slightly change the trajectory in how we are presenting the information and the purpose of understanding it. As the process has around a one hour wait for melting the plastic in the oven, during the workshop this time could be spent for interactive learning. I was considering how much more informative and interesting events are that make me do things myself, and yes we would already be making the frisbee, but the physical product is only the representation of the larger ideas Sofia and I have been actively discussing. Maybe the ‘guide’ could have some ‘workbook’ pages, where some of the environmental statements had a blank gap, and during the discussions children could learn the facts and fill in the gaps. This goes back to the conversation with my mom (psychologist, who works with children) and how she explained her effective techniques in explaining mindfulness practices to six year olds. 

Section 7. Conclusion

In conclusion this has been a very rewarding experience due to the commitment I dedicated towards the realisation of the initial idea. I combined my interest of arts, environmental awareness, and the demographic of children to participate in the production of a project that truly meant something to me. This opportunity also allowed me to personally grow in terms of collaborative work, as Sofia and I made a great team and shared a lot of compromises to overcome relevant issues. The Re-Frisbee was also monumental in using the science knowledge I had retained in the sphere of visual creations, which further inspired me to open my perspectives when scouting for materials for my own projects in the future. Just reflecting on my outlook of creating during the duration of this course, as well as sharing the experience (instructions) with the larger audience instead of just the final product, has levelled up my confidence as a creator. I realised it’s not just about how you finalise your progression, but how you can share the process. This was my first fully hands-on experimental project for an environmental cause, and I have to thank Andy for introducing us to so many new machines and techniques that I will most definitely be exploring the next opportunity I have. The journal entries during the weeks capture it better than I can summarise here, but I further pushed my design thinking to produce radical ideas that can later be simplified into achievable steps for the betterment of our planet, whatever the creation. I feel how the information from this course, as well as the production of Re-Frisbee, has evolved me as a global citizen and a team player when on the topic of the environment, and I am very excited to see where my life takes me with this new direction I have sourced through our IMA community. 

Bio-Sequins: A Potential Alternative for Sequins Decoration in the Fashion Industry

Inspiration

My partner Ben is a fashion study student and he shared a great interest to find out a potential alternative for plastic sequins in the fashion industry. As I researched, I find out that sequins are polluting our planet.

“Sequins are a short-term hit with long-term consequences, none of them good,” Dr. Trisia Farrelly, an environmental anthropologist at Massey University in New Zealand, told the MailOnline.” –“How your favourite sequin dresses are actually destroying the planet”

The problem is that all the sequins existing in the current fashion industry are all made of plastic. During the washing and using, those plastic sequins attached or sewed onto clothes may fall down and drain into the ocean, which will make great damage to our environment. As we learned the idea “accumulation” in our weekly reading if sequins are going to keep accumulating, it will be a big issue in the future. Besides, as my partner, Ben shared his knowledge about the fashion industry, those plastic sequins used in the fashion show will be thrown away immediately after the show, which is really fast-fashioned and polluting. Ben and I love fashion and we are all inspired by bioplastic. Hence, we decided to have a test on the potential alternative–bioplastic sequins.

Process

Experiment#1

In the first experiment, we wanted to try out our bioplastic, testing whether it works or not. 

Recipe:

• Gelatins: 48g
• Glycerol: 12g
• Coldwater: 250ml

Tools:

• Pan
• Heater
• Spoon
• Spoon scale
• Molds

Experiment Steps:

• Mix gelatins and coldwater 
  • kept stirring it and gradually it turned to something like jelly.
•  The heating process
  • turned on the heat
  • kept stirring again
  • it gradually turned back to liquid. When it completely transformed into a liquid
  • pour glycerol into it and kept stirring.
• Pour to mold
  • When there were some whitish appearing, pour the liquid into the mold.
• Some changes
  • Because the color of this bioplastic is deep, I decide to add more 50ml cold water into the rest of the liquid.
  • I kept heating the second test. I want to know what will happen if I add more water.
• Waiting for dry
  • I place these three products on the table in 823. They need at least three days to dry out. Let’s wait and see the result.

Photos:

  Preparation

Cooking process

Pouring to the mold

Waiting for drying (the left one is the testing one which I add more water)

Result:

The drying process lasted 5 days. Because the mold is too thick, so the drying process is too long. So I decided to take the product out of the mold and cut them into several small pieces.  Finally, I got something good:

Successes:

1. The recipe works! We got something really similar to plastic but it is purely natural.
2. The smaller one is lighter in color than other experiments result. It means that the color of bioplastic can be modified by adjusting the amount of water.
3. It is hard enough for laser cutting or other crafts.

Failures:

These products are thick, strong, untransparent plastic and they feel like the hard plastic board, which is the same as my expectation and imagination. But we faced a lot of issues:

• The mold is too thick, it takes too much time for drying and the final product is too hard to used in clothes making.
• The color looks bad
• It should be a flat sheet which is big, thin, soft enough for artmaking.

Follow these feedbacks from the first try, we dig into the next experiment.

Second experiment

Materials:

• Gelatin 150g
• Glycerol 50ml
• Coldwater 750ml
• Flower Buds
• Lavander

Tools:

• Pan
• Heater
• Acrylic boards (2)
• Gram scale
• Spoon
• Measuring bowls
• Stirring stick
• Strainer

Experiment steps:

1. sure out wet and dry ingredients and separate via bowls & beakers
2. Split the water into 2 equal parts (1 is to be boiled, the other is to be kept in room temperature)
3. Create the rose/flower water (dye/fragrance) by boiling water and petals until the desired color is reached
4. Strain the liquid and remove all excess petals
5. Mix the hot rose water with the room temperature water and add gelatin *before gelatin is added*
6. Mix in the gelatin until a thick consistency is reached *try to reach a consistency that has NO clumps/chunks*
7. Heat the pot with the mixture until a white foam/bubbles in the mixture begin to form and accumulate (DO NOT BOIL)
8. Strain the mixture again or use a spoon to remove the white foam/bubbles
9. Pour the mixture onto the flat acrylic sheet *Make sure there are no spots or hols, and try to remove air bubbles if possible (Make sure to lay a protective layer underneath the acrylic – the process is messy and very HOT)

Photos:

The gelatin in the lab had been used out in the first experiment. I got more from Deli life supermarket.

We boiled the flowers to get some color first.

Making process: this time we removed the whitish on the surface, and we got the final product without the white surface as last time.

Pour the liquid to Acrylic boards.

Result:

This time we only used three days to dry out completely. We got the textile which perfectly meets our expectations.

Successes:

1. We got a sheet which meets the our expected improvement from the first try: big, thin, soft, transparent.
2. We tested it in a laser cutter and it won’t burn. It means that we can use this textile for sequins making.
3. Thanks to the flower buds, the final products appear a little bit red. It means that we can modify the color by adding natural color

Failures:

1. The materials are too soft. The product from the first try is too hard. We still need to find a medium hardness.
2. The materials can be resolved in constant water washing.

Test:

We used the material we got to laser cut. This is the AI file of our laser cut.

We tested the material with Andy, we need to know if it will burn or not. 

The thickness is 0.5mm. We got two sheets. We did a plan B, which is we just laser cut one of it and the rest one can be shown if we mess up the laser cutting one.

This is the testing process. We tried to laser cut several rectangles and tested different settings: frequency, power and speed:

And we found the best setting for the laser cut :

Perfect Settings: 
Speed – 100%
Power – 27%
Frequency – 30%

“Things to note:

There was ALOT of smoke. Sis, turn the fans ON. Watch out for air bubbles, they were a bit tougher to cut so try and get as much air bubbles out as possible during the pour/drying phase. We also used flowers to organically try and color the dye (it barely worked) but some petals were left in the mixture even after running it through a sieve. The flowers or organic material left in the bioplastic has the risk of burning in the laser cutter, so exercise caution. “

–Citing from Ben’s report

Laser cutting images:

And we got:

Implements

I was asked many times in the IMA show: “How you can apply this thing in practice?”

Here is how I answer from IMA Show:

“We can use this material for sequins making in the fashion industry. For my experiments, I used three bags of gelatin powder and glycerol from the lab. Gelatin powder cost me 30 RMB and we eventually can get two boards of sequins. This is really expensive for the fashion industry. For now, I think it can be used only in some fashion shows and art pieces because people will not consider the cost in these two cases. However, for industrial levels, I still need to have more time for experiments and calculating the cost. But I am still optimistic about it. For my experiments, I used gelatin for food and I bought them from the supermarket. They are absolutely expensive. But if I use industrial gelatin and I bought a lot once time from a gelatin factory, the general cost will go down largely. Also, for future production, we can come up with a method to utilize all the materials to improve the efficiency of using and we can get more sequins from a single try”

The use of bioplastic sequins can be a mature system not only in Shanghai but in the whole fashion industry around the world.

Future improvement

If we have more time, we will try to solve two things: color and dissolving issue.

For coloring, this time we used limited flower buds to color our bioplastic. But as we can see, the color is almost invisible. So if we have more time, we will try to use more color materials to color our bioplastics. Also, we will try different types of color materials. In IMA show, one guest told me that we can try an electric coloring material. That is really interesting.

For the dissolving issue, Ben told me that he brought one piece of bioplastic to shower and it dissolved. But I put my first experiment product into water and test. The result is that it won’t dissolve. So I think the thickness of bioplastic can be a big issue. If we have more time, we will test different thicknesses by using molds in different thicknesses.

Educational meanings

Our project is not aimed at education, but I think it will bring awareness to everyone who buys clothes with sequins. Especially if some fashion companies take our project into consideration and develop a mature sequins making system, they can use the title of bioplastic as a sign for marketing. They will bring the bioplastic products to more consumers, and it will gradually raise the awareness of sustainability among people.

Personal Reflection:

The most valuable thing I’ve learned is that bioplastics can actually be made and used, not just as an environmental concept. In class, I always felt that bioplastics were still only a concept and far from the actual production. However, through my experiments and research, I found that bioplastics could be immediately commercialized and had a profound cultural impact on society. Take my project as an example, as long as the cost is reduced and the product quality is regulated according to customers’ needs, we can see bio-plastics in stores. In addition, from the perspective of the experiment, I think we can learn a lot from the failure and shortcomings of an experiment. These experiences will guide the next experiment and will be the key to its eventual success. 

Special thanks to my excellent partner BEN TABLADA and our cuties professor Marcela!

Reference:

https://materiom.org/recipe/22

https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/gallery/sequins-damage-environment