Into The Gyre Strategy Report by Gigi Lapid

Gyre

Strategy Report 7524QCA Enhanced Design Tools Practical Project Submitted by Gigi Lapid 06 October 2019

Image from Freepik.com

Image Credit: Freepik.com

Table of Contents

Introduction Purpose of Project The Context Design Intent

04 05 08

Goals and Objectives Scope Design Conceptualisation and Development The Enclosure The Bristlebots The LEDs The Corals Assembly and Testing

Implementation and Feasibility

Conclusion

Bibliography

11 12 13 15 16 17 18

Introduction

Purpose of Project This practical project investigates a specific global issue and attempts to respond to it by way of a conceptual and creative output. The output was produced using an array of enhanced design tools.

This project plan defines the following: • Project purpose, the context and design intent • The long and short-term goals and objectives of the project • Scope of the project which includes team member’s roles and design tools used • Design Conceptualisation Prototyping, Assemble and Testing • The implementation and recommendations

Fig. 1. Illustrations by Susie Cagle. Images from The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ us-news/2019/jun/23/all-the-plastic-ever-madestudy-comic?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR38H0D3JIrKM2GvziaXMRWTJg_pY_kmDd5vwU0-AKxd1kugivfR4scORaw

The Context This project brings to light the rapidly increasing issue of plastic waste in the ocean. An article (Cagle 2019) by The Guardian reports that industrial ecologist Roland Geyer’s claim that humans have produced 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s. This alarming number was further investigated by Geyer and a team of researchers in 2017 and their findings have shown that only about 30% of produced plastic is still in use while the rest has been disposed using three methods: 1) 79% ends up in landfills and the environment (e.g. oceans), 2) 12% is incinerated and turned into fuel, and 3) only 9% is recycled. Geyer states that the majority of plastic waste found in landfills and in the environment will outlive the next generations of human civilization since it will take roughly around 400 to 1000 or more years for them to degrade. Even with degradation, a new risk presents itself in the form of microplastic particles infiltrating surface water, sediments, and oceans all over the world (Dimzon, et al. 2018). In 2015 and 2016, The Ocean Cleanup Foundation deployed a large-scale plastic-collecting expedition called The Mega Expedition which sought to retrieve a portion of plastic debris from a small part of the North Pacific Ocean. The clean-up, which was made up of 18 vessels with mesh trawl nets behind them and an aerial survey, resulted in the discovery of what is now called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch or The GPGP. The area of the patch is approximately 1.6 million square kilometres which is roughly the size of mainland Queensland, Australia (Loria 2018). According to scientific reports, the patch contains at least 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, a mix of a wide range of plastics: microplastics (0.05–0.5 cm), mesoplastics (0.5–5 cm), macroplastics (5–50 cm) and megaplastics (>50 cm) (Aitken, et al. 2018). A majority of these plastics were found to be buoyant due to their low density, resulting in their movement with the ocean’s currents or gyres as well as by winds currents (Aitken, et al. 2018).

Fig. 2. A portion of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Image from Getty Images. https://futurism.com/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-iseven-bigger-than-we-thought.

Fig. 3. The Gyre Map. Image from a National Geographic source. http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_ International_Rescue/Plastic_The_Great_North_Pacific_Garbage_Patch.htm.

Given these distressing facts, the team felt the urgency to create a piece that would tackle the issue using a design approach. The team decided early on to focus on creating a kinetic piece due to the fact that The GPGP was formed by ocean currents or gyres. With this in mind, the idea of incorporating Bristlebots (Oskay 2007), small moving robots made from household items, was introduced by one of the team members as a potential medium to represent the movement of plastic waste caught in the gyres.

Fig. 4. Windell Oskayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original Bristlebot. Image from the Evil Mad Scientist website. https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2007/ bristlebot-a-tiny-directional-vibrobot/.

Design Intent The imagery generated by The GPGP creates a very strong visual impact on any viewer: an endless blue ocean littered with a vortex or gyre of floating, swirling waste. The team took this as a starting point for the discussion on what the design intent, the ‘Why?’, of the project should be.

The team felt that what needed to be addressed was threefold: 1) the audience’s awareness of The GPGP and its impact on the environment, and on all humankind, 2) the idea of using the Experience Economy as a platform to foster awareness and spark conversations by using current consumer behaviour to work in favour of the cause and 3) how new consumer behaviours and societal habits could be encouraged and influenced.

Fig. 5. Tan Zi Xi’s “Plastic Ocean” installation piece at the SAM. Image from a National Geographc source. http://www.bluebird-electric.net/oceanography/Ocean_Plastic_International_Rescue/Plastic_ The_Great_North_Pacific_Garbage_Patch.htm.

Awareness of The GPGP At present, there exist numerous online and offline educational initiatives about The GPGP. Spearheaded in 2013 by The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organisation founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, these initiatives are slowly being embedded into the primary academic system particularly into the STEM curricula as toolkits similar to material produced by The Earth Day Network (2018) and course activities. Institutions such as the University of Houston, Regents of the University of Colorado (Howell and Koptelov 2019) and The Patterson Science Center in North Carolina (Philyaw 2019) have recently adopted this practice.

Millennials and The Experience Economy According to Harvard Business Review’s ine and Gilmore, we have now entered the Experience Economy wherein consumers favour experiences over actual, tangible products (Gilmore and Pine 1998). With the economy driven largely by millennials, companies have chosen to focus on designing new and immersive experiences over physical goods. An example of such is artistillustrator Tan Zi Xi’s “Plastic Ocean” installation piece inspired by The GPGP (Huang 2016). The interactive piece, which was part of the Singapore Art Museum’s Imaginarium series in 2016, invited museum-goers to step into a room full of suspended rubbish.

Inspiring Behavioural Change According to an article on The Conversation, behavioural science can aid in curbing consumers’ plastic addiction although technology alone does not provide the solution (Borg 2018). The article posits that empowerment, positive reinforcement, defaults and prompts should be employed rather than “shock or shame” consumers into changing their ways (Kolff 2019). Additionally, both articles also propose that societal-level change may prove to be more effective than individual initiatives.

Goals and Objectives

Fig. 6. Millennials drive the Experience Economy. Image from Freepik. https://www.freepik. com/premium-photo/funky-people-dancing-music-having-fun-together-beach-rave-afterhourparty_4620963.htm#page=4&query=millennials+fun&position=15

The goal of the project is to generate awareness about the GPGP and foster behavioural change in consumers through a travelling experiential art installation.

The objective of the project is to: • Appeal to the Experience Economy’s generation of consumers (millennials) • Reach as many countries as possible, potentially those with a high plastic waste production • Raise funds for local and global environmental initiatives • Promote and support local social enterprises

Scope The project focused on the development and production of a maquette of the experiential art installation. Recommendations for its full-scale implementation will be included in this report. The duration of the maquetteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production was over 5 weeks.

Excluded in the scope were budget and funding, exhibition scheduling and timelines, and material sourcing for the actual full-scale installation piece.

The Teams The tasks were delegated to different specialists. These were: Digital Visual Designers (Gigi Lapid and Puneet Sharma) Marketing specialist and Project Manager (Jennie Franklin) Electronics specialist (Harish Aravind) Lighting specialist (Tanya Menadue)

The Design Tools used: Adobe Illustrator SketchUp Trotec Laser Cutter BBC Micro: bit and MakeCode website NeoPixel and LED strips Electronic components (Photoresistors and Transistors)

Design Conceptualisation and Development

The Concept Taking the imagery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the team decided to create a maquette that would visually represent the ocean (both above and beneath the ocean surface). To represent the gyre’s floating plastics, they utilised found objects (household brushes) to which they attached motors and batteries. The name of the piece will be aptly called “Into the Gyre”.

The maquette would be comprised of four components:

1. A built enclosure 2. Bristlebots 3. LED strips 4. Coral figurines

Fig. 7. Early concept sketches. Image provided by Puneet Sharma via Facebook Group. https:// www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 8. Early vector illustration. Image provided by Gigi Lapid via Facebook Group. https://www. facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 9. The Ice Age Aquarium. Image provided by Jake Adams. https://reefbuilders.com/2009/11/09/ ice-age-aquarium-neatest-empty-tank/.

The Enclosure The first component to be built was the enclosure constructed out of acrylic. Acrylic was chosen due to its appearance, material properties, availability and affordability. Initially planned to be circular, the enclosure’s design was later revised due to the constraints that came with the pliability of the material.

Acrylic, also known as plexiglass, is a thermoplastic (as opposed to thermoset) which means that it can be reheated (160 degrees Celsius), re-moulded and reused without significant loss in quality. It can also internally transmit light in the same way glass does and can be cut into very fine shapes using a laser cutter because the material vaporises once hit by the concentrated beam (Creative Mechanisms Staff 2016).

To keep with the theme of promoting more conscious plastic consumption, the first batch of 3 mm thick acrylic sheets were purchased from Reverse Garbage is a “not-for-profit worker run co-operative that promotes environmental sustainability and resource reuse” (Reverse Garbage n.d.).Unfortunately, the team found that the quality of the recycled acrylics to be poor and ultimately resorted to buying new sheets from an acrylic supplier.

The dimensions and design of the enclosure were first sketched out, then digitised by one of the team’s designers, Gigi Lapid, who had used Adobe Illustrator (for the actual panels to be laser cut) and SketchUp (to see if all the panels’ joints fit correctly). As recommended by Puneet Sharma, the technique used to join all the panels was the joinery method which is a traditional wood-working method (Brosa Design 2017).The design was then prototyped using a laser cutter and 3mm cardboard and later, finished using acrylic. For the look of the enclosure, the team looked to Reef Builders’ “Ice Age Aquarium” for inspiration (Adams 2009).

Fig. 10. Sketch of the enclosure. Image provided by Tanya Menadue via Facebook Group. https:// www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 11. Joinery Technique. Image from Brosa Designs. https://www.brosa.com.au/blog/the-artof-joinery/.

Fig. 12. SketchUp model of enclosure with joinery. Image provided by Gigi Lapid via Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/ groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 13. SketchUp model of enclosure with wave detail. Image provided by Gigi Lapid via Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/ groups/467760013806038/.

The Bristlebots Bristlebots were invented in 2007 by The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories’ Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay who describes them as “tiny, directional, vibrobots” which simply means they run on small vibrating motors (Oskay 2007). The bots are constructed out of a toothbrush, a battery (alkaline or lithium coin cell), foam tape or putty, and a vibrating motor. This simple construction of Bristlebots was slightly altered by the team’s Electronics Specialist, Harish Aravind, by adding Photoresistors and transistors into the build. Photoresistors, also called Light Dependent Resistors, are “light-sensitive resistors whose resistance decreases as the intensity of light they are exposed to increases” (Resistor Guide n.d.). Transistors, on the other hand, are “tiny switches that can be triggered by electrical signals” (Coolman 2014) which means that they control the flow of electric current. The two components were used to control how the bots would react to the lights of the enclosure. Discarded 3D print parts and scraps were also incorporated into the bot design to give each bot a distinct, hodgepodge look.

Fig. 14. Initial prototype of the Bristlebots. Image provided by Harish Aravind via Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 15. Image of Photoresistor from https:// core-electronics.com.au/mini-photocell-8807. html

Fig.16. Image of a Transistor from https:// core-electronics.com.au/transistor-npn-bc337. html?fbclid=IwAR1-TXOOc0tRgHlL2XYt4ggV8J 9inO2B7zq0Hp4lfuMLPNkvu94DVrvkh_Q

The LEDs To light up the maquette from below, LED strips were used. An LED or Light Emitting Diode is an “electronic device that emits light when an electrical current is passed through it” (Tech Terms 2009) proved to be the most energy-efficient and economical choice of lighting for the project given the fact that the colours of the lights were programmable via code. The team’s Lighting Specialist Tanya Menadue worked on creating the code for the LED light strips using the BBC MicroBit MakeCode Editor. She experimented with a code she had found on an online resource site (Make n.d.). After several iterations, Ms. Menadue was able to create a code that transformed the LEDs to emit blue and white light (representing the pristine ocean) and a yellowish, brown light (murky, polluted water). A NeoPixel was used to develop and test the codes. An external power source, a portable power bank, was used to light up the LED strips.

Fig. 17. Lighting codes created in Makecode. Image provided by Tanya Menadue. https://130tmenad.wixsite.com/ tanya/post/neopixels.

Fig. 18. NeoPixel testing. Image provided by Tanya Menadue.https://130tmenad.wixsite.com/tanya/ post/neopixels.

The Coral Figurines To effectively capture the feel of an otherworldly, underwater landscape, various coral forms were designed by the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s designers on Adobe Illustrator. Designer Gigi Lapid proposed a coral taxonomy that initially included 3 different types of corals:

Flat Corals - 10 layers of organic shapes stacked atop one another (30 mm ht, 2 pcs). These corals were inspired by Fijian Coral Gardens (Bruckner 2013). Cactus Corals - slotted type, freestanding sculpture (80 mm, 3 pcs). These corals were based on Staghorn corals (Helgason 2017). Cloud Corals - slotted type, freestanding sculpture (50 mm, 2 pcs). The appearance of these corals was inspired by the Acan Coral (Lee 2014).

Due to time constraints, only 2 types were produced. The final coral designs, 2-piece slotted type sculptures, were first prototyped used cardboard then finalised in scrap acrylic found in the production labs.

Fig. 19. Corals prototyped using cardboard. Image provided by Gigi Lapid via Facebook Group. https:// www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 20. Corals finalised on acrylic. Image provided by Gigi Lapid via Facebook Group. https://www. facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Assembly and Testing

Once all the components were finalised, the piece was assembled by the team. Because the team had carefully prototyped each component prior, they did not encounter any major issues with the assembly. Double-sided tape and cello tape were used in fastening all the unstable portions of the build. Acrylic scraps found in the laser cutting machine’s tray were added into the seafloor as “pebbles.”

Fig. 21. All components before assembly. Image provided by Tanya Menadue via Facebook Group. Assembled piece. https://www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 22. Assembled piece. Image provided by Jennie Franklin via Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Fig. 23. Assembled piece. Image provided by Jennie Franklin via Facebook Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/467760013806038/.

Implementation and Feasibility

In the future, this project can be implemented as a four-piece touring exhibition entitled “Into The Gyre.” The exhibition will be composed of the following:

A large-scale installation piece that could be roughly the size of a standard ping pong table (dimensions: 2.74 m long and 1.525 m wide and mounted on sawhorse table legs). Ambient ocean sound effects and lighting will be added to the experience.

A Bot Building Station where workshops on basic bot building can take place. Participants will be provided parts to build their bots and at the end of the day, these will be dismantled for the next round of participants.

Informative educational videos and screens displaying visuals and data on The GPG and the effects of plastics will be playing on-loop.

The “Waves of Change” section will house display cabinets and vitrines that show various artefacts and items. Exhibited items will be sustainable alternatives to plastic. Ideally, these items will be local products as the exhibition will invite local social enterprises and businesses to showcase and promote their products. Collaborators such a local initiatives, organisations and educational institutions will also be invited to give talks and workshops.

Fig. 24. EcoDesign Roadshow. Image from Google. https:// www.ecodesigncircle.eu/images/ ResourcesForYou/Roadshow/ The_exhibition/GDD2017_ reconsider_design_005.jpg.

Conclusion â&#x20AC;&#x153;Into the Gyreâ&#x20AC;? is just a small drop in a vast ocean of environmental initiatives that aim to address The GPGP. The project is a testament to how current and emerging technological and societal trends may be used to forward a good cause and hopefully, incite a movement that will positively influence and impact future generations.

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