Hacking Time for Upcycling [Episode 2: Upcycling for a Better Life]
It’s been a week since the first episode for the Upcycling Hacking Workshop, where we shared five amazing projects. Now, we’re going to highlight another four created at the workshop.
Since the teams were able to make anything at their will during the afternoon, the four projects varied in themes. There was a Zebra Decor lamp, a Recycled-Bottle-for-Candy Exchange Machine, a Smart Mobile Vertical Plant Grower, and Modular Furniture. Let’s jump to their making journey.
The Recycled-Bottle-for-Candy Exchange Machine
It is universally acknowledged that every kid loves candy. This was the basis of the Recycled-Bottle-for-Candy Exchange Machine. To help kids form the habit of garbage classification, the team made a sweet offer: encourage them to recycle drink bottles in exchange for candy. When a recycled plastic bottle is inserted into the machine, it sends out a specific amount of candies depending on the weight of the bottle.
Inside the machine, there was a complex mechanism: an ultrasonic sensor was in charge of detecting recycled bottles, a servo handled the giveaway of candies, and a Seeeduino controlled the entire system.
Kids will definitely be crazy about the machine, because even I, a-28-year-old, just couldn’t stop playing with it.
The Smart Mobile Vertical Plant Grower
The Smart Mobile Vertical Plant Grower is a smart plant growing ecosystem, which has two lighting systems. The bulb lights up when the sensor detects someone passing by. The other LED strips are hidden in the back side of the vertical structure, which are triggered to light up red (otherwise it’s green) when the moisture sensor sending out water shortage message to the Seeeduino. Apart from these, there is an OLED attached to the Grower, which displays real-time data including solid temperature, humidity, and illumination.
The half-cut PVC tube is mounted to a recycled wooden pallet as pots to grow plants. Using a glue gun to attach the cobblestones to the tube to shape a close pot was a really brilliant idea even though it took a lot of time to do it.
Another cool part of the project was the four swivel wheels mounted to the base, which makes it much easier for anyone to move the Grower. Putting users’ experience into consideration even when you are tinkering a prototype is really sweet!
The Zebra Decor Lamp
The team behind this project struggled a while in discussing what to make for their second unassigned theme workshop, while the other teams were already busy tinkering. After a two-hour brainstorming session, they chose to build a second lamp, which led to the creation of the Zebra Decor Lamp!
It was fun, quirky, and cool, with PVC tubes milled into its body. The team even painted the black skin patterns on it. An ultrasonic sensor was mounted as the zebra’s nose, while the LED strip and a Seeeduino were connected and hidden inside the body. The head and tail were designed into two pots for plant growing.
When a user comes near, the ultrasonic detects their presence and LED strip is activated and shows a shivering lighting pattern.
Modular Furniture
Implementing modular functions into furniture was the uniqueness behind this project. The team employed a bunch of recycled PVC tubes of various length and turned them into two layers of huge cylinders. Each cylinder was a modular base — they could be put together as a side table while using a single one as a storage box.
Because the tubes were painted black and a circular shaft blue, it looked cohesive together as an industrial-style side table.
Material waste has been a huge burden for our planet, so I really hope that the creative ways the workshop participants upcycled common materials could inspire you as well. Let’s keep making and upcycling!
