Week 5

Week 5 - Design For Materials

In week 5, entrapped in our homes, with the rise of Covid-19. We made some discussions about improving available products in the market.

We realized that product improvements may not only apply to its performance and design. Product improvement may even be applied to a molecular level and that is the material of the product.

Why is material so important?

Material is important as all physical non-natural man-made products are made from materials that are manipulated or designed to do specific tasks. Materials will also decide the performance efficiency of products.

For example, a key made from material X my be better than a key made from material Y due to material X being a more stronger material. A key made from material Z may be better than material X due to material Z being more affordable yet just as strong and that material Z are more abundant in nature thus more cost efficient.

In this activity, we are looking into a material called WASARA, named after the company that manufactures it.

What is WASARA ?

WASARA is currently used to make tableware. Made from bamboo and bagasse, the material is perfectly renewable as bamboo grows fast and bagasse is made from sugarcane. Both of these materials came from sources that do not significantly impact the earth.. Bagasse is also softer than wood pulp, this allows energy required for manufacturing to be significantly reduced (WASARA, 2021).

So what do we plan to do with WASARA material? The table below will show our idea:

Design for Materials – Worksheet for Activity

Class: DCHE2A02		Group: 1
Name of material	WASARA
Chemical Name	Carbon, ash, water and lignin
General Description	WASARA is a material that is easy to manufacture and its interior resembles a textured woven surface. It is a single-use paper-like material.
General Properties	Odorless Lightweight mouldable
Opportunities	One-time-use tablewares or containers can be made out of the material.
Information from https://eliser.lib.sp.edu.sg/xmlui/handle/get/17435
Discuss among the group how this material can be used as a direct replacement to a material in an existing product without any significant changes in the design Replace the paper ice cream tubs which are usually made of paper or plastic with WASARA. WASARA is a better material since the paper doesn’t hold the structure very well when the tub is not full and collapses in on itself and the lid (often made of plastic) doesn’t fit the tub anymore. Plastic on the other hand has ecological impact by which it is not biodegradable and causes ecological damage during the manufacturing process unlike the WASARA which is made from sugarcane bagasse and bamboo.
Discuss among the group how this material can be used to enhance the functionality of an existing product through some changes in the design.  Our idea involves some changes to the current wrapper that is used to contain ice cream on sticks. Instead, the WASARA material will be designed into the shape of the ice-cream. This provides two advantages. One of which is the replacement of plastic wrappers which are not eco-friendly. Second, using plastic wrappers, whenever the ice-cream melts, the shape of the ice-cream deforms, with the WASARA material, the ice-cream can be re-frozen into its proper intended shape.

 TL;DR, We will be making ice-cream containers with WASARA, this is to reduce the amount of plastic used for packaging not to mention that these containers can be reused and recycled.