The London-based design studio Studio Swine (made up of Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves) are taking their passion for sustainable architecture and industrial projects on an adventure out into the plastic “soup” of the “bigger than Texas” Pacific Garbage Patch trapped within the swirling vortex of the North Pacific Gyre. They have designed a solar-powered 3D printer that they will use to transform the “nurdles” (industrial plastic pellets) into bespoke furniture.
Nurdles and other under 4mm diameter micro plastics can’t be collected by waste systems and are light enough to float on the surface of the ocean for over a thousand years before biodegrading.
Since the discovery of the Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997, which is predicted to measure twice the size of Texas, five more have been found across the world’s oceans with the Atlantic gyre predicted to be even larger. This plastic takes thousands of years to degrade, remaining in the environment to be broken up into ever smaller fragments by ocean currents.
…Sea Chair is made entirely from plastic recovered from our oceans. Together with local fishermen, Studio Swine collects and processes the marine plastic into a stool at sea…
Read More. And to learn more about the Gyre and the Patch, visit here.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!