Product Design & Technology News
Product Design & Technology Excursion - Student Report
Last Friday 28 April, the Unit 3/4 Product Design Technology class went on an excursion to Precious Plastic Melbourne, a local recycling factory in Mitcham.
Every year, the world produces about 350 million metric tons of plastic waste. One of the causes of this issue is that many areas lack plastic recycling capacity, as it is time-consuming and expensive. Precious Plastic aims to change this to create a more sustainable environment, starting by up-cycling bottle lids and creating high-quality products.
Donated or collected plastic is washed and sorted into colour and type. This is then crushed into granules with a shredder, and stored for a variety of uses.
One of these manufacturing methods is to funnel these granules into an extrusion and injection moulding machine, which melts the plastic into a liquid and shapes it into a mould. We used this method to make our own sustainable pen and carabiner clips.
Personally, I found it very inspiring to see local initiatives to tackle plastic pollution, and it was very rewarding to manufacture something knowing that it had virtually no impact on the environment. I learned a lot about innovation and technology, and it was a fun and interesting experience overall.
After lunch in the city, we arrived at the Melbourne Museum to explore the "Top Designs 2023" exhibition for an hour, which showcased the works of 69 selected VCE and VET students across over 10 design subjects.
There were many impressive projects on display in the Product Design & Technology section, ranging from an intricate wooden designer’s toolbox, a rotating drawer table that looks like a giant Rubik's cube, a well-constructed family game table, to a multipurpose and rearrangeable table. There were beautifully designed coats and other fabric based products. These products have set a pretty high standard about the quality we should aim for in our own projects, which we are set to start building in the coming weeks. On display were also the accompanying design folios, which offered great insight into how we should construct our own product folios going forwards.
We also admired the projects from other subjects, as they were all uniquely interesting and very high in quality as well. A few of my personal favourites were the “Self-balancing Motorcycle”, the short film “Mechanical Dreams”, the “Ariel in the Tempest” costume design, the “Sprout Restaurant” packaging and merchandise, the “Evergreen Wander” magazine, the song “Trust the Dead”, and the graphic novel “Auspicious”. I highly recommend anyone who has an interest in design to take a look at these projects, which can be found on the Melbourne Museum website.
https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whats-on/top-designs/
By Ashton T 11C & Lorien G 12E
