BRIEF
Try to explore new eco-friendly materials and use them in the design to help reduce pollution to eco-system.
TEAM MEMBERS
Tracie / Lulu / Alexandra Li / Chun Li
INTRODUCTION
Our class went to Green Lab in London for a week to explore eco-friendly materials.
In the lab, the researchers introduced us to a variety of different materials, such as Algea and demonstrated the method of producing the material. They give us some recipes with different kinds of raw materials.
Here are the materials we made in different ingredients on the first day.
MATERIAL ANALYSIS
The material properties of gelatin and ajar determine the functions that the material can be used for.
These environmentally friendly materials have the following properties:
1) Quickly degraded
2) Easy to Degradation
3) Shape, colour and texture of the material can be changed
These materials can be used as short-term materials.
In this project, our team made an adjustable mobile phone case. The mobile phone case is characterized by high demand and low cost and is a fast-moving consumer product. However, at present, mobile phone cases are basically made of plastic, and throwing away the phone case directly by the user is very unfriendly to the environment and makes it difficult to degrade. So we hope to use this new material to make the phone case a recyclable product.
Gelatin is thicker than ajar, and it is more robust. So we use gelatine to make our product. This material is soluble in water, can be deformed by heating and can be degraded when thrown into nature. So it’s safe and sustainability. If we change the formula, it can become very thick and solid as a piece. We can use this eco-friendly material to replace plastic products.
PROTOTYPE
At first, we made our first with paper. Then we were thinking of making a prototype with gelatin. We made a prototype with Gelatin.
However, gelatin didn’t dry for a whole night. So we use the material we made on the first day. We used scissors to cut the material according to the shape of a phone.
REUSABLE DESIGN
We were thinking of how to make the phone case reusable and could be adjustable to a different size. And we thought of many different plans. In the beginning, we were thinking about how to make it really “adjustable”, we have many ideas about the form, such as LEGO, us bricks; or let the case could be stretched, even an agraffe to make it become adjustable.
However, when we have a better understanding of the characteristics of the gelatine, easily dissolved, heated again it will shape again, we decided directly to make it reformed every time. To measure the size of the phone, we designed some retractable parts, which can be used to accurately measure the length and width of the phone, and replace the position of the phone when remaking the phone case.
Then we thought of the package of this product. Because our phone case is an eco-friendly product. So if the packaging is still plastic, then what is the significance of this phone case? So we use Ajar for packaging. Different from the gelatin, it’s more soft and smooth, also have a tracing paper look. The whole product is eco-friendly. We made a package design for the product.
Here is the video showing the package design of the product.
Based on all these, we design a package for the phone case to help user reuse it.
All the products are organised in the package. The package contains a phone case, a mode and a heatable box. When users get the phone case they just keep all the package and use the phone case. When they change a phone or they want to change their phone cases, they adjust the model inside the package according to their new phone and put the box on the oven. Then they put the old phone case and the model inside and wait for the material to become dry. In this way, people can get a new phone case. When people want to abandon the phone case, they just throw it into the water and the phone case will dissolve.
REFLECTION
There are still some shortcomings of this design, such as:
- the size of the packaging box cannot change, so it can't fit phones with special sizes
- the material is not waterproof,which means when it drops in water, the shape will change
- the process of making a new shape phone case is smelly
So instead of the plan of melting the material, we should think of more plans to realize it.
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