# Trashy

The purpose of this project is to utilize digital fabrication techniques to create wearables/jewelry from trash. The ultimate goal is to craft sophisticated items from discarded materials.

## Background

> [name=Francisca]**Francisca:** I am interested in wearables, jewelry, and design products that go hand in hand with digital fabrication and modern craftsmanship. My personal approach to design is to make the process fun and enjoyable, with the intention that the final pieces can be worn in a punk/queer-related environment.
This project aligns perfectly with my intentions because working with trash fit with my view of independence and reinforces the statement of my personal goals

> [name=Minnie]I am doing interventions mainly with material waste. I am exploring the topics of climate conscience, "waste colonization", and how we might re-define and re-emphasize collective care. In doing the challenge, we used already discarded material from what we've personally collected, from a cafe and the Fablab.

## Summary
In this document, you will find our different explorations on working with plastic bags, bottle caps and other "trash" materials and also with bioresin. We were able to create hard and flexible samples.

We learned how to plastics react to different heating methods.

We found the process enjoyable and full of potential.

## Materials
- LDPE Plastic Bags
- HDPE Bottle Caps
- Pine Resin
- Aluminum Foil Packaging
- Egg shells

## Experimental processes

### Sheet press machine:

With this machine we played in two ways

#### Joining plastic bags:
this one was the easiest procceses,pressing the bags with heat joined them together, with more bags and foldings, the structure gets more dense.


we had to be careful no to over melt the bags


#### Melting HDPE:
The purpose of this was to do a dough for us to be able to form it with the hands

At the beggining the temperature wasn't high enough so it wasn't well melted and was very difficult to knead

with more attempts and with a learing curve, we ended up putting vaseline in the protective paper, melting the HDPE in two sides and putting the sheet in the thermoform machine to avoid to curl while colding

We ended up having a well press sheet with an even surface and beautiful color combinations.


### Oven

Here the purpose was to also do a dough for us to be able to knead it and give it a shape with hands.

We tried like four times the process, we learned that is better to put the plastic with a silicone base and to be careful with not burning the material.


When melted, was super difficult to hand shape it, we think it could be that the gloves were to big and uncufortable. The best we were able to get was a ball.



### Vacuum Press/Thermoformer

With a shape that we 3D printed and one of the plastic pressed bags we use the thermoformer. When we had a bad result we only had to flatten the bags and try it again. In the final result the bags folded in a interesting way that we couldn't control but we liked it and we left it that way. For the future we want to keep exploring with more shapes



### Big Press Machine

With its larger surface, higher temperature and pressure capacity, the purpose of this machine is to create large sheets of plastic.

The frame that you use in this process gives the width of the sheet. We couldn't find smaller ones and we ended up using metal frames of 1 cm. As we were doing this for the first time, this was a difficult starting point.

We had to fill the frame with shredded HDPE, press and wait for the plastic to melt. Because the width was so big, the plastic in the middle part wasn't melting. So we had to cold down the sheet, fill it with more plastic, press and wait again.


In the second time wainting for the plastic to melt, same thing was happening, we needed more plastic and we run out of it. At the same time It was already late, we were tired and the laboratories had a strong smell of melted plastic.

So it wasn't a successs, but at least we tried it. For next time we will use smaller width frames.

### Vinyl Cutter
Model: Silhouette Cameo 3
Software: https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/software

Cutting the thin heat-pressed sheets went smoothly with the vinyl cutter. We just had to secure the sheet to the mat, using a mat glue as needed.

We discovered that in some sheets we made, the layers did not weld together in the middle. This caused the layers to separate. We assume that this is due to the lack of heat that went through the middle layers.


### Heat Gun/Hot Air Welder
Model: BAK Rion Hand Held Roof Hot Air Welder

We used the heat gun to form the thin sheets around molds.

The heat gun allows for targeted application of heat. One difficulty with it was that it was blowing air too hard, causing the materials to fly off if not held well.



### Pine Resin

As a quick way for prototyping with resin and trash, we used pine resin and some silicone molds that we found.

We melted the resin pour it in the molds along trash pieces. They dried up very fast but the resin is very fragile so we broke some of the results by accident.



## Files

[Funky shapes for test cutting](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DvHTgqEgBEoVl7mGNUL5KjwJDltlEYOU/view?usp=drive_link)

[Long pattern for test cutting](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DvHTgqEgBEoVl7mGNUL5KjwJDltlEYOU/view?usp=drive_link)

[3D model for thermoforming test](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1odmczWKzEJfLNmwDG_gJr6PE5oSnGilX/view?usp=drive_link)

[Tile for vinyl cutter](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rzKI8U1oaYqM3TSVLi00A76wqqkMwyy2/view?usp=drive_link)

## Outputs
### Heat pressed HDPE + Laser cut

### Heat pressed HDPE + Laser cut + Heat gun


### Pine resin + Heat gun + Heat pressed bags

### Vinyl Cutter + Heat pressed bags

## Future Applications

From this learning experience, our goal is to create a design piece integrating various processes. Also exploring making molds for jewelry stones, working with the CNC, experimenting with sewing machines and pressed plastic bags, and to integrate the design within the community.

We also want to explore parametric design in creating tileable/connectable pieces. This adds to the fun of mixing and matching different printed patterns that come with the materials.

## References

Mì Tôm Xanh is an organization that recycles noodle wraps into multi-functional products.
https://distributeddesign.eu/talent/mi-tom-xanh/


Open source textile designs at fabricademy https://oscircularfashion.com/

Mary Ann Williams
https://www.textileartist.org/mary-ann-williams-interview-a-textile-system-builder/

[Pine resin tutorial](https://youtu.be/srAiCIu2Y3o?si=gBSzmLUCASDF5NWu)

## Authors
### Panchi
https://panchipunchi.github.io/MDEF-Francisca/

### Minnie
https://minnie-at-iaac.github.io/
> [name=Emmanuelle Pangilinan]