Final product made in partnership with Samuel Radziwon, Mauricio Constanza, Stella Bagno, and Kaiti Kirby

As part of my final undergraduate capstone course, Product Design, I, along with four of my classmates, was tasked with researching, designing, and constructing a product for a specific market. After an initial discussion, we decided to develop a product to address recycling-related issues. Through our research and a consumer survey, we found that a significant number of people have recyclable plastics in their homes that they keep to reuse later, such as plastic food containers. However, they also purchase single-use plastics, such as plastic bags and cups. We also found that if they were to recycle these items, only 5% would actually be fully recycled. From this, we decided to develop a product that would allow consumers to reuse their existing recyclable plastic materials and turn them into new single-use plastic items. 

To do this, we found that constructing a tabletop injection molder with a plastic shredder would be the best approach. With this setup, consumers could shred their waste and turn it into products for a variety of uses, depending on the mold's shape. 

To construct our product, we purchased two pre-made shredders and a plastic extruder. We found through testing that two shredders would be enough to get the plastic shreds to the size where they can be properly extruded. We used a high-torque motor coupled to a gear train to drive the auger inside the extruder. We CNC'd molds from aluminum stock that we felt our setup could produce easily. After continued testing, we found that our product successfully created small plastic products from shredded plastic containers. 

To properly protect the consumer from the dangerous elements of the product, we created an acrylic shell around the shredders and extruder with a door for accessing the molds. We also installed two fans with activated carbon filters to help prevent the buildup of harmful fumes and to circulate cooler air when powering down the heating mechanism. 

During the presentation expo, we demonstrated our product results along with our poster detailing our development process and videos of the product functioning in a safer environment. We won Most Innovative among our class of five total teams.