The story board of a foam pad

The first picture represents how is the storyboard of a foam pad used in the banana plantation. It shows all the steps and all the interaction that the workers have with this pad

The second picture shows my thoughts about new shapes and new ways to carry it in a more ergonomic way.

Slater Mill museum

Located next to the Black Stone river in Pawtucket the museum we visited has a collection of old machinery, these machinery symbolized the beginning of the mass production.

One of the building of the museum is dedicated to textile machinery. The production in Pawtucket was predominantly cotton textile.

Carding process

The process of carding helps to align the fibres in order to be processed.

The picture shows how before the invention of the machine the process was done. This process was done mostly by women, a small amount of cotton fibre were placed on a brush and the other brush was pulled through the fibres.

The invention of the carding machine allowed to speed up the process. The machine includes a cylinder carding engine. All the surface of the wheel is covered by brushes. The upper part of the machine is composed by other removable brushes. The rotatory motion of the wheel cause the rubbing of the brushes and the alignment of the fibres.

I consider his machine interesting because it can be used also for other type of fibres like wool, the alignment of the wool fibres is the first step of felting.

PESTICIDE

Banana Harvesting

EARTH and WHOLE FOODS

MID PRESENTATION

This collage represent all the process that I have been done until now regarding my material research.

I started showing my first basic experimentation with the material we got. After this first step I focused my interest more in the felt and the end grain processes.

I brought two samples that I made with me in Costa Rica where I got few feed back from professors, students and workers.

Once I came back to Providence I had a conversation with one of the administrator from EARTH University, we were talking about the potentiality of my materials in the packaging field.

He gave me few advices thinking about a material that can protect the fruits from the field to the processing plant.

Then I moved my research to the banana plantation since exporting bananas represent the 20% of the income of EARTH university.

EARTH developed new systems regarding workers rights, reduction of pesticides, recycling organic waste and decreasing non organic waste.

http://www.earth-usa.org/Page5348.aspx http://www.earth-brand.org/english/bananas.php

From all these consideration I started developing my idea. Thinking about the welfare of EARTH university (the income from exporting bananas) and the welfare of the local communities we visited in Costa Rica (100% of the families work in the dump collecting, selling or use the trash) I wanted to create a system that belonged to both.

I identifyed a need in terms of material performances: I wanted to find a material soft enough in order to be applied in the bananas plantation to protect the bunches from bruising.

At the same time the same material, once it has been accomplished its use in the banana production, could be used as an insulator construction material in the rural communities.

In order to fulfill my need I started a new research in terms of material samples.

I came out with few new materials with different performances in terms of softness and resistance.

My idea about the final product is to have a modular unit that can be used easily from the workers in the banana plantation and this unit can be somehow link together in order to create an insulator surface for the housing.

The collage ends with a SWOT analysis that helps to understand the limits and the opportunities of the system I developed in order to get feed back and advices.

Costa Rica Video!

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http://vimeo.com/22258186