Challenges
Due to the current pandemic that’s wreaking havoc across North America and all over the globe, communication with people relevant to this project has been severely affected. Delayed or in some cases no responses have been seen, but Rewind’s team has a firm belief that they will throw down the gauntlet. In addition to delayed responses, not being allowed on campus due to campus closure and shelter-in-place enforced the Cal Poly and state authorities has heavily affected the collection of data from offices and labs on campus. Hence Rewind’s team has been fairly disadvantaged when it comes to communicating with others. There are so many people who haven’t responded and many have given fairly delayed responses, but it’s completely understandable because of what all of us are going through right now.
Selvan reached out to the fellow UC Berkeley students that participated in this project at their school and asked questions to gauge what necessary steps they would have to take for their project here at Cal Poly. It was also thought be beneficial to acquire any knowledge or advice on the topic that they might have so those ideas could also be implemented at Cal Poly.
After talking to them, it was found out that the equipment they used for the 3D printer filament recycling was a Filabot extruder and winder. However, they mentioned that they would not recommend this, and they are actually looking at purchasing the Noztek extruder and tolerance puller. They only use PLA filament since ABS and other filaments produce toxic gasses when heated.
From there, they were asked how they go about collecting the filament. They mentioned that work-study students collect the bins that they have placed in a couple large campus marker spaces. Basically, they only have a few designated spots, where students are more likely to congregate, around campus for these bins.
Since it’s been a couple years since they started this project, they were also asked if people are still actively participating in this initiative. They told Rewind’s team that it started off as a two student project, but more students have shown interest in this initiated and have become part of their team. They now have around 5-6 students actively working on this project. They also estimated the cost of this initiative at being around $5000-10000 of grant funding, which was necessary for them to buy all the necessary tools they needed.
Finally, they were asked how they were able to advertise the service to students and faculty, and the students in-charge of the project took it upon themselves to talk directly to the directors of the two largest makerspaces on campus so they could encourage students to recycle the 3D printer filaments and use the service for a more environmentally campus. Rewind is still in the process of getting the collaboration project going between the two campuses. UC Berkeley seems to be willing to work together and are also willing to give us all the information needed, but because of the current pandemic, communicating with them has been really hard
Rewind’s initial approach to gather information from Cal Poly’s campus was to email most departments and inquire about 3D printers. Some questions that were sent their way were “How many 3D printers is your department equipped with?,” “What filaments are used?,” and “What is the most popular filament used at your department?” This communication strategy didn’t work as well as it was expected it to. Only two departments responded and their responses didn’t seem to be of much help. When this issue was brought by Rewind’s project advisor, Professor Murray, during the weekly meeting he pointed out that most department offices are probably swamped with emails, and since most student assistants aren’t able to work, hence delayed or no responses should be expected. Instead, Selvan and Wajahat worked on coming up with an alternative approach which was directly contacting professors, shop managers, asking students from other majors, and helpdesk managers. Once emailing people of interest directly had started, much more responses were being received.
The responses that were received were helpful, but a larger sample is still required. Rewind’s team was optimistic with expecting more responses in the weeks after sending out emails but that hadn’t been the case. All the data collected was still put into tables. Even though it may seem that ABS and PLA are printed in equal amounts in the table below, PLA is the most popular filament on campus. The reason for that being that it’s much less finicky and easier to print than most of the other filaments according some people that were contacted. It was brought to Rewind’s attention by Rob Randle from the EE department that his department will potentially be buying more printers and housing them in a designated location. Professors involved in this include Bridget Benson, and Gary Perks. They plan on including basic 3D printing exercises in their courses. EE 143 course has already begun introducing 3D printing fundamentals to its students. Students in this course redesigned chassis for continuity testers. They were also given in-person tutorials at the EE IT Helpdesk by student assistants who work there. This course is supposed to be offered in larger numbers in the coming quarters. This increase in the use of 3D printing will not only require even more 3D printers at the instructors’ disposal, but will most likely require a student assistant whose only duty will be to manage all these 3D printers.
|
Department Name
|
Number of Printers
|
Filaments Used
|
Most Popular Filament
|
|---|
|
Electrical Engineering
|
6
|
PLA, ABS, Carbon Fiber, PETG
|
PLA
|
|
Industrial Engineering
|
1
|
ABS
|
ABS
|
|
Mechanical Engineering
|
2 so far but might have 4
|
ABS, PLA
|
ABS
|
|
College of Architecture
|
Don't have an exact number but this college probably has the most
|
ABS, PLA
|
PLA
|
|
Industrial Technology And Packaging
|
3
|
PLA, ABS, Nylon, Water-soluble PVA
|
PLA
|
|
Innovation Sandbox
|
18 but might have 20
|
ABS, PLA, TPU, water-soluble PVA
|
PLA
|
Previous Ventures On Campus
Dr. Katona brought to attention that a similar project was started by a team with a similar goal called the Filastruder (Katona). This team was able to set up a recycling station for the sole purpose of recycling 3D printer filament that was used by them. They found out the quality of the reclaimed filament was of subpar quality and would result in more failed prints and printer downtime. According to their experience, roll to roll variability and starting quality were the two biggest challenges that their team faced. Dr. Katona also brought up how sorting of material would be a problem since we will be reclaiming from different machines. Rewind won’t have to face such issues since the technology it plans on using is far more advanced than what was used in Filastruder.
First Survey
As the project progressed, Rewind’s team realized that they needed to target a larger audience since the technicians at the departments weren’t the only ones using 3D printers. To tackle this they created an online survey with three sections, the first one being about personal information, the second one being about the 3D printers that they use, and lastly how they’d like the filament collection to work. This was initially tested by people that were first contacted from different departments. It was then posted on Cal Poly’s College of Engineering Newsletter online as a “College Highlight.” It was possible thanks to the Director of Marketing and Communications of the College of Engineering, Charlotte Tallman for getting Rewind on the college’s newsletter, and here’s the link to CENG Connection. In addition to this, the survey has also been posted various Cal Poly groups on Facebook.
Online Presence
Online presence is a major component of Rewind. In order to do so, Wajahat got in touch with the College of Engineering’s Digital Media Specialist, Moncerratt Peralta. She was kind enough to get us in touch with Charlotte Stallman as well. For getting Rewind its own website, she told Wajahat that only Instructionally Related Activities can get their own website on the Cal Poly. Since Wajahat worked on the Electrical Engineering department’s website, he will be putting Rewind up on their domain. These webpages will give users a form to fill out, show the history of how Rewind came into existence, and inform others of what Rewind is all about and good 3D printing practices.
