Week17: Green Lab
2020-2-21/ Cloud
Partner: Winnie & Chengguang & Lili
This week, we will go to the green lab for a week's study. On Monday morning, my tutor first introduced us to what a recyclable system is.
Then my tutor showed us how to make environmentally-friendly materials with seaweed powder. We will make these materials ourselves and use them to design and make a product.
Making Material
Process
We made some things with the materials we made, there were earrings, key rings, and a card case.
Then we learned about the habits of algae. Some algae can grow into a new individual under the right conditions. As we know, it is a photosynthetic organism that can be used to make a range of products from environmentally friendly packaging to textiles. However, rather than just creating a new biodegradable plastic product, it would be an interesting attempt to use algae as a material to design something renewable and provide an interactive experience for humans and algae. So when we were brainstorming, we combined the characteristics of algae to design a picture frame for children to draw, so as to improve the children's awareness of environmental protection.
Design Concept
To achieve our goal, we designed an “Algae painting kit set” to introduce algae to children.
This kit helps children create unique and vibrant paintings. It is aim is to popularize the next generation with green materials such as seaweed and encourage them to use algae as a more sustainable part of their lives. It is not only a renewable painting product but also a product that can bring you an interactive experience.
As long as the finished seaweed painting is placed in a humid environment, it will present a process of discoloration. The painting may look different from one week to the next, and the change is entirely due to the natural growth of algae. As the algae grow, the cells become more brightly colored, symbolizing the interaction between humans and nature. In addition, the advantage of using algae color is to reduce the waste of using harmful colors.
We want to create a design that makes the substance more attractive, encourages the next generation to welcome algae into their homes for decorative purposes, as well as to help nature.
Presentation
First, we introduce our product concept for you, and then we demonstrate the use of our products for you.
We then asked each group to list three examples of recyclability, two products and one building. The building is about China hosting the world expo in 2010. Many countries are going to build pavilions in China, but after the expo is over, these pavilions cannot be brought back to their own countries. So the Swiss pavilion USES soy fiber as a building material, which can be used to generate electricity and can be broken down back into the soil.
1、Add seaweed powder
2、Add water and coagulant, add to the pot and heat for 10 minutes without stopping stirring
3、Pour into the mold and wait for the mold to form
This is a box covered with watercolor paper, the whole box is wrapped by a canvas. The way to use the kit is to have children paint on watercolor paper, then cover the canvas and fill it with seaweed paint. There is no color at first, because the cloth's natural absorbency gives the algae room to grow, so after a few weeks, the algae will grow and the color will seep from the canvas to the watercolor paper below, appearing green on the watercolor paper. Eventually, it will look like this. This is a more natural way of doing it in green.
the first day
After a few weeks
Feedback And Reflection
After the presentation, our group received the following feedback:
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If these algae-based pigments can be selected in different colors
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This product is designed for children and is not toxic. For fear of being eaten by children
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How can we solve this problem when the algae on the paper dried up and died?
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Algae need air circulation to survive and pigment conservation is a problem.
This week my group members are the same three as last week. Because the four of us in the cooperation last week, feel very smooth and happy. Through these two cooperation, I found that it is very important to learn to communicate. It is inevitable that there will be different opinions and ideas in the discussion. However, try to understand each other's ideas and reasonably put forward your own opinions. Only by such effective communication can we inspire each other and help the project proceed smoothly.
Through this study, I learned about so many different recyclable materials for the first time. And for the first time I made the material, and made various products with this material. It was a great learning and experience for me. I like this way of learning very much, because it makes me more truly feel the value and significance of environmental protection materials in my life.