Biodegradable Hanging Luminaire

I designed a biodegradable hanging luminaire (hanging light in other words) that is inspired by African drums. The idea was to create a light that good for the environment and will decompose over time instead of having a long lifecycle. This means that this light can be discarded in any way and will not harm the environment. The light complies of three pieces, one of which has slots cut into it to create movement and a pattern when the light is on. For this prototype, the source of light is LED strips.

Materials needed:

• 7x Egg carton
• 15x Eggshells
• Flour
• Salt
• Cotton Twine
• 1x 40ml Bottle of food colouring
• Plastic for mould (Used PVC interlit 500 microns for this prototype but any strong, flexible plastic will suffice)

Tools needed:

• Big bowl
• Latex Gloves
• Craft knife
• Scissors
• 48mmx75mm Sellotape
• Plastic packets
• Compass (mathematical set)
• Glue gun and glue sticks

Egg Carton:

1. Cut the egg carton into small pieces
2. Place them into the bowl filled with water (ensure that the water goes over the material)
3. Let them soak for a day

Eggshells:

1. Leave the eggshells out in the sun for a while so they dry
2. After ensuring all of the wet parts of the shells are dry, put them in a container to crush them. How much you crush the eggshells depends on how you want the texture of your light to be like.

Dying the cotton twine:

1. Pour the food colouring into a plastic packet
2. Cut long Strips of the twine
3. Put it in the plastic bag with the food colouring and let it soak in the coloring for a few hours

This stage is basically a trial and error and is dependent on how big you want your light.

The two equal pieces:

1. Figure out the overall size of the light
2. Then you would in a sense divide this by 2
3. When cutting your plastic to mould, make sure that you cut more than what you have estimated for the size of the two pieces (which are equal in size). This is because when making it you will be forming a cone with a rectangle piece of plastic by meeting/overlapping their ends. How wide the bottom of the cone is depends on how you twisted and overlapped the ends. Use sellotape to hold it in place and if you aren't satisfied with it, remove it and try again.
4. Once satisfied, you will mark where you will be cutting the excess from and have the size you want.

The Middle piece:

This piece follows the same process of twisting and shaping but when cutting the excess material off, then you would have to mark a diagonal line of where to cut instead of straight to create asymmetry.

After soaking the egg carton:

1. Squeeze most of the water from the egg carton just enough that it isn't dry but also not too wet.
2. Add the flour to the mixture to bind the carton pieces. Add enough flour that the pieces bind together and don't separate but don't add too much that it's too mush. Wear gloves when mixing.
3. Add a generous amount of salt. This helps in keeping the material from mold.
4. After mixing everything, add in your crushed eggshells and mix

When moulding your material to your mould, make sure that you are moulding it on a tray so you can move it around without disrupting it.

When moulding, mould your material on the inside of your mould. This is because you are going to be keeping it outside to dry and the sun and air darkens the exposed surface. The plastic of your mould keeps one side protected.

N.B. Covering both sides in plastic results in moisture build up which will keep your material from sticking to your mould.

Once the material is fairly dry, it will easily remove from the mould as the material is now dry and not sticking to it.

On the third piece, mark where you are going to cut slots using strips of paper. Use a glue stick to stick the paper to the part.

Use a craft knife to patiently cut your slots. Be careful not to be rough so you don't damage the part as it is fragile.

1. When the cotton twine has soaked up enough of the food colouring, wearing the gloves, squeeze the excess food colouring out and leave them out to dry.
2. After drying, poke holes in the first and second pieces of the light for the "sewing" part. I used the sharp point of a mathematical set compass but anything sharp to create a small but big enough hole for the twine will suffice.
3. Cut long enough strips of the twine that you can tie knots at both ends while also considering the distance between the top and bottom.
4. Pull the twine through one part and tie it in a knot and then pull it through the other part and tie a know too.
5. On the top piece, poke four holes which you will use to pull the twine through them to hang the light.

The last piece with slots is then connected to the middle piece using a glue gun (hot glue)

Then you use the glue gun to stick your LED strip to the light and hang your light!