Materials

** 5/13 **
Our trucks and wheels came, and we assembled our penny board! We attached them, and the board works! We rode around on it a little bit, and the board bends a little more than we want it too. We might put a spine in the middle to reinforce the strength. We are also working on a second board that will hopefully work better. We are making it a little wider and longer, but the last layer we added went in the fuze for too long. While nothing burned, the board flattened out a lot more than we wanted it too. This turn out to be a good thing in the end, but it just means we will need more plastic to finish the board.

** 3/15 **
==== Since we last updated, we have returned to making our penny board. We made a second half, also out of cut up laundry detergent bottles, and fused the two together. We attached the parts together with more cut up piece son both sides of both halves of the board, then fused them. We tried to level the board out as much as possible and sanded off any bumps to get it smooth. We ordered trucks and wheels and are hoping to get those within the next few weeks to finish the board! ====

** 2/12 **
==== We have been experimenting with all types of HDPE plastic, or the #2 recyleable plastic. We have been focusing on using old detergent bottles, and fusing them together. After washing and drying the donated bottles, we cut them up into smaller chunks for fusing and/or melting. We have successfully both fused and melted this plastic. We created a screwdriver by melting down small chunks of the bottles, and have made half of a possible penny board stereotype. This new penny board is very strong, and in the future we hopeto keep adding to it. Pictures to come! ====

Our plaster came in and we made or mold. It came out okay, so we melted some plastic down to see if we could get it thin enough to fit in the mold nicely. The answer was a resounding no. The plastic didn't fit in the mold at all, and all we ended up with was a deformed blob. We then faced the problem of running out of plastic bags for a few days. We got more bags today, and as a team we have been talking about other applications for our melted plastic material. So far, we have come up with dog toys and frisbees as possible outlets for the material. -Bella, Maddie, and Jack We are planning to make a plaster mold of both a penny board and its wheels to pour our melted plastic into. We are, unfortunately, still waiting on the plaster needed to make this mold. We made homemade play dough to aid in the molding of the wheels.So in the mean time we have been experimenting. We wondered if melting down our fused plastic would make our plastic "hockey pucks" harder. We learned that it took a higher heat to get the plastic to heat, and the concotion was more paste-like, but it came out a little bit harder than the first hockey puck.
 * 1/11 **
 * 12/21 **

-Bella, Maddie,and Jack

HI! We are the new Materials team for 2015-2016! Our names are Maddie, Bella, and Jack. This year we are starting out with making penny boards out of recycled plastic bags. We have been using the Fusinizer to fuze bags together to make the board. We are also using a technique of melting plastic bags with oil over high heat. We then place the melted bags in a mold (ceramic mug) to cool and form what will become our wheels. As of right now we are just experimenting with various plastics to see how load bearing they are, and how much we will need to complete a board. We will experiment with various types of plastic and various plastic to oil ratios. 'Til next time!
 * 12/8 **

-Bella, Maddie, and Jack

Last year's page: Here