Project Scope
The defined duration scope of this project is one academic year. Starting phase one of the project, Research and Concept Exploration, in the beginning of September and finishing in early December 2020. Phase two, Concept Execution, will begin in early January and conclude in mid-April, 2021 with the grad show.
Although not accessible until January, part of the school’s equipment includes a shredder to grind up post-consumer plastic (PCP) to prepare it for extruding, the Filabot EX6 Set-up (capable of melting and extruding polymer granules and shredded PCP), and Tinkerine Ditto Pro 3D printers to test the recycled filament on (which can also be tested at home with my Prusa i3 MK3S).
Problem Statement
A system is needed to connect FDM 3D printing users in the Greater Vancouver Area to collect scrap filament for recycling and reusing to help promote a closed-loop mentality with the increased interest of 3D printing.
The idea (although still in the project’s early stages and open to extensive changes) is to contact and connect local 3D printer users to form a community and create a system to retrieve or recieve PCP, shred and extrude it, and either sell at a discounted price or give the recycled filament back to the people who donated in the first place. Below is a storyboard of a potential outcome of this project.
Birk Zukowsky
Framework
This project will follow Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt’s The Natural Step framework, provided to us from a presentation in one of my first-year classes by Sue Fairburn, which was originally adapted from Victor Martinez. The Natural Step’s framework is as follows:
Principle one: the systematic increase of concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels) must be eliminated.
Principle two: the systematic increase of concentrations of substances produced by society (for example, plastics, dioxins, PCBs and DDT) must be eliminated.
Principle three: the systematic physical degradation of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests, destroying habitat and overfishing) must be eliminated.
Principle four: conditions that systematically undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on) must be eliminated.
Supervision and Guidance
Sue Fairburn, MSc, MEDes, FRSA; and Victor G. Martinez, Ph.D will be the instructors for phase one (Fall 2020) and Iryna Karaush, B. Arch, MASA; Stephanie Phillips, BAA, MA; and Victor G. Martinez, Ph.D will be the instructors for phase two (Spring 2021). The fourth-year Product Desing students will also be a support network for each other and provide constructive feedback and criticism.
Approach
The initial extensive research period will be followed by concept ideation and finally a design concept presentation at the end of the semester. The following semester starting in January will commence with concept exploration and testing, succeded by poster and exhibition design, ending with final product presentations. For in-depth stages, refer to the calendar below.
Calendar
| Proposal Presentation | September 8th |
| Inspiration & Identification | September 29th |
| Research Presentation | October 8th |
| Design Reflections | October 22nd, November 5th, and 19th |
| Concept Presentation | December 10th |
| Concept Exploration Presentation | TBD |
| Testing Report | TBD |
| Design Report | TBD |
| Poster | TBD |
| Exhibition Design | TBD |
| Viva Presentation | TBD |
| Grad Show | TBD |
Fairburn, S. (Spring, 2018). DESIGN FRAMEWORKS / Tools Set 1 [PDF file]. Design for Humanity, 3.