Category: News/Press Releases

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Illini Gadget Garage Summer 2016 Hours and Volunteer Opportunities

We’re pleased to announce that the Illini Gadget Garage will be open over the summer to assist “test pilots” with troubleshooting and repair for your small electronics and appliances with electronic components! Open hours for the summer are:

  • Tuesdays 11 AM – 2 PM
  • Wednesdays 5 PM – 8 PM
  • Fridays 12 PM – 3 PM

The Illini Gadget Garage is housed within the Illinois Natural History Survey Storage Building #3 (SB3); see this Google Map for directions.

Since SB3 is not yet ADA compliant, the space is open only so student staff and volunteers can work with “test pilots” –those who do not require accommodations for accessibility–so that they can gain experience with working with members of the public on troubleshooting and repair. If you require accommodation and would like to work with the Gadget Garage to repair a device, please email staff at illinigadgetgarage@gmail.com to arrange for an appointment in another accessible public space.

We will also be hosting “pop-up clinics” in accessible spaces around campus to better serve the community until our physical location has been renovated for accessibility. Be sure to follow the Gadget Garage on Facebook or Twitter to see announcements of pop-up clinics. If your department, RSO, or residence hall would like to host a pop-up clinic, please fill out our form to indicate your interest.

Whether you’re stopping by SB3 during open hours, or attending a pop-up clinic, you might want to take a few minutes to fill out our diagnostic form. This provides staff with some basic information about your device and the issues you’re experiencing, so they can do a little research ahead of time, hopefully making your one-on-one time more productive.

Whether you’re a student on campus for research or summer classes, or a faculty or staff member that enjoys tinkering, we hope you’ll consider volunteering with us! If you’re interested, fill out our contact form. If you’re technically inclined, your expertise can benefit others in our community! If you’re not at all technically inclined, but interested in sustainability and can help out with social media, networking, writing blogs or resource guides, etc., then you should also consider volunteering. The Gadget Garage is NOT just a project for techies! We want to empower everyone to feel comfortable with maintenance and repair of their devices, and to use and dispose of electronics more responsibly. So join us in this effort!

Tentative Illini Gadget Garage identifying mark

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State Electronics Challenge Recognizes the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) as a 2016 Gold Winner

ISTC Logo[Champaign, Illinois April 4, 2016] – The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) today received a Gold award for its achievements in the State Electronics Challenge; a comprehensive nationwide environmental sustainability initiative that currently reaches more than 220,000 employees in 47 states. ISTC was recognized for its accomplishments in green procurement, energy and paper conservation, and responsible recycling of electronic office equipment in 2015.

“ISTC’s program is a truly outstanding example of a commitment to environmental leadership,” commented Lynn Rubinstein, State Electronics Challenge Program Manager. “This is the second year in a row that the program has earned a Gold Award.” She added that “ISTC is one of only 12 organizations nationally being recognized this year and the only one in Illinois.”

“We’re really pleased to have received recognition again. Participating in the State Electronics Challenge has provided a great framework for our organization to ensure that we’re making better choices in purchasing as well as continuing efforts to limit impacts in the use and end-of-life management phases,” said Joy Scrogum, Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist and coordinator of ISTC’s Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI).

As a result of these environmental initiatives, in 2015 ISTC saved enough energy to power 6 households per year, avoided greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 8 cars from the road per year, as well as avoiding the generation of more than 50 pounds of hazardous waste – equivalent to the weight of a refrigerator.

ISTC has committed to purchasing computer and imaging equipment that is qualified by the Electronic Procurement Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT®) standard.  EPEAT is an internationally recognized system that identifies office equipment that meets specified environmental performance criteria.  It also uses power management and requires double-sided printing to decrease energy and paper usage, and ensures that at the end-of-life, equipment is recycled by a third-party certified electronics recycler – Secure Recycling Services & Secure Processors.

“ISTC was the first Illinois organization to participate in the State Electronics Challenge, joining back in 2011. We only began applying for recognition in recent years, after we took the time to write a specific policy that captured what we were already doing to make our electronics-related operations more sustainable, as well as setting forth purchasing standards. The written policy will help us stay on target and continuously improve in the coming years, through revisions as our goals change. ISTC provides technical assistance to organizations and businesses throughout the state, and we’ve been able to point clients and other University of Illinois departments to the SEC checklist and resources as a way of helping them tackle sustainable electronics issues in simple, manageable ways,” Ms. Scrogum stated.

The State Electronics Challenge offers its participants annual opportunities to document their achievements and receive recognition for those accomplishments.  In 2015, the reported actions of 31 participants in green purchasing of electronic office equipment, power management, and responsible recycling resulted in a total of more than 1,250 tons of electronics being recycled, which, along with power management and green procurement:

  • Prevented the release of almost 12,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2E). This reduction in greenhouse gases is equivalent to the annual emissions from 8,612 passenger cars.
  • Saved enough energy to supply 7,845 homes per year
  • Avoided the disposal of hazardous waste equivalent to the weight of 2,120 refrigerators
  • Avoided the disposal of solid waste – garbage – equivalent to the amount generated by 388 households/year.

A full list of winners and their environmental accomplishments can be found on the State Electronics Challenge website (www.stateelectronicschallenge.net).

“The State Electronics Challenge provides state, tribal, regional and local agencies, as well as schools, colleges and universities and non-profit organizations with a great opportunity to integrate concepts of sustainability and waste reduction into their operations,” added Ms. Rubinstein.  “It’s inspiring to see programs such as the one developed and implement by the ISTC to ensure that the highest environmental practices are met through the lifecycle of office equipment.“

The State Electronics Challenge awards were made possible through donations from Samsung, Panasonic, and the R2/RIOS Program.

About ISTC

ISTC is a division of the Prairie Research Institute on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Its mission is to encourage and assist citizens, businesses, and government agencies to prevent pollution, conserve natural resources, and reduce waste to protect human health and the environment of Illinois and beyond. It promotes more sustainable technologies, processes, and practices through an integrated program of research, demonstration projects, technical assistance, and outreach. Learn more at www.istc.illinois.edu.

About the State Electronics Challenge

The State Electronics Challenge assists state, regional, tribal, and local governments to reduce the environmental impact of their office equipment.  It annually recognizes the accomplishments of Partner organizations. The Challenge is administered by the Northeast Recycling Council (www.nerc.org). Currently, 157 state, tribal, regional, colleges, schools, universities, and local government agencies, and non-profit organizations, representing more than 212,600 employees, have joined the SEC as Partners.  For more information on the SEC, including a list of current Partner organizations, visit www.stateelectronicschallenge.net.

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Illini Gadget Garage Update & Upcoming Consortium Meeting

At the beginning of the fall 2015 semester, the UI Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium met to discuss the Illini Gadget Garage project, which had received funding from the Student Sustainability Committee. The Illini Gadget Garage is a collaboration of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, the UI School of Art and Design, and the UI Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and is focused on launching a repair center for student and staff owned electronic devices. This venture is meant to extend the useful life of products while providing experiential learning for students (through associated classes, volunteering, and participation in the iFixit Technical Writing Project), and empowering people to see do-it-yourself repair as a viable option for addressing minor damage and performance issues. You can read more about the project on the SEI web site, as well as a summary of the previous consortium meeting on the topic.

Classes are underway

ISTC was granted the use of Storage Building #3 by its sister survey, the Illinois Natural History Survey, and the Prairie Research Institute, to house the Illini Gadget Garage. The space is well suited to the purpose, and two classes taught by project team member Martin Wolske are currently meeting in the space (Intro to Network Systems plus Informal Learning Spaces and Pedagogies). A course taught by team member William Bullock this semester has student teams working on various operational aspects of the Illini Gadget Garage, including development of a stand alone web site, development of an identifying mark and signage, design of tool kits and storage, envisioning the layout of the space, and working on a business plan for the future financial self-sustainability of the project. At the end of the semester, student concepts will be compiled into a book for the project team for consideration, further development, and use moving forward. Students in both Professors Bullock’s and Wolske’s classes are creating online repair guides as part of the iFixit Technical Writing Project, continuing UIUC participation, which began in 2014. (iFixit has also donated over $2000 worth of tools for use in the Gadget Garage.)

Tentative Illini Gadget Garage identifying mark
Identifying mark developed by Lu Lawrence, Amanda Henderson, and Ruchita Mandhre, as part of ARTD 591/391 with Professor William Bullock.

Space–the final frontier

Storage Building #3 has proved desirable in many ways, but as the project team worked with INHS staff, Facilities & Services, and other campus units to clear, rearrange, and upgrade the space for its new purpose, we discovered that it is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The space had previously been used as an office/lab area, and such spaces are not required to have particular types of entryways, parking, etc., as long as no one working there requires such accommodations. However, in order to open the Gadget Garage to the public, it became clear that several upgrades were necessary, including pouring an accessible parking space, a sidewalk from a nearby curb cut, creation of a new doorway closer to the planned accessible parking, and some other minor interior changes. At first our project team saw this as a minor delay; we would continue to entertain “test pilot” clientele without need for accommodation in the space and plan to renovate before winter for a grand opening for everyone once upgrades were complete. Unfortunately, estimates for all of the work required came in at over $32,000–much more than we had anticipated, and which was available to us in the SSC grant and matching funds for space considerations. By the end of October 2015, it was clear that we needed to regroup.

Plan B: Test pilots needed and ‘pop-up’ clinics planned

Because classes are already meeting in the space, and because we need somewhere to store tools and equipment already obtained, our project team has arranged with INHS to continue using Storage Building #3 as a base of operations. In the meantime, we plan to continue working with “test pilots” in this space, so student volunteers can gain experience with working with the public, checking in patrons, and logging impacts (e.g. number of devices repaired, pounds diverted from the landfill through repair, etc.). So if ADA accommodations are not something you require and you have a device that needs repair, please do visit the Illini Gadget Garage during open hours (see http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/research/gadgetgarage.cfm for more information). To ensure that all members of our campus community can benefit from and participate in the Gadget Garage, we’re planning to host “pop-up” repair clinics at various locations around campus which are already accessible. The first clinic of this kind is scheduled for December 1 at the PAR library (more details to come soon; thanks to Bradley Irwin, Graduate Research Assistant, and Residence Hall Library Graduate Assistants Hailley Fargo and Cameron Riesenberger for arranging this!). Our project team will identify other locations for such clinics, and work to raise funds for the renovation of Storage Building #3 through donations and other grants. We’re happy to report that we recently received a donation of $5000 from HOBI International, which is a great start toward making the necessary upgrades!

How you can help

  • Join us at the next UI Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium meeting, at ISTC from 2:00 – 3:00 PM, Tuesday, November 17, 2015.
  • Bring ideas for “pop-up” locations, fundraising, and even alternative spaces (we love SB#3, but if you know of an alternative space that is already accessible, we’d like to hear about it).
  • If you can’t come to the consortium meeting on 11/17, but have ideas as described above, contact Joy Scrogum.
  • If you’d like to volunteer at a “pop-up” clinic or at the Gadget Garage itself, contact Martin Wolske or Brad Irwin.
  • Bring in a device for collaborative repair during open hours at Storage Builidng #3 (Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 2 to 6 p.m.), to give our repair crew some practice (and hopefully breathe new life into your gadget!).
  • Donate to the SEI Various Donors Fund, and specify “Illini Gadget Garage” in the “Comments or Other Instructions” field on the online donation form. Small donations add up! You or your organization will be recognized on the SEI web site, the stand alone Gadget Garage site (once it’s up and running), and receive an acknowledgement from both SEI and the UI Foundation. If you prefer to donate by check rather than via the online form, contact Joy Scrogum for instructions.

The tagline being used currently on signage at SB#3 is “Illini Gadget Garage: Repairing & Demystifying Technology for a More Just and Sustainable World.” Our campus community is working together to make this a reality. Join the campus consortium on 11/17 to be a part of it!

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Free Champaign County (IL) Electronics Collection Scheduled for October 10

thumb1A free countywide residential electronics collection event will be held on Saturday, October 10, 2015 from 8 AM to noon at Parkland College, 2400 W. Bradley Ave., Champaign, IL. The collection will be in Parking Lot M; enter from Duncan Rd.

Residents may bring the following electronics items (working or non-working) to the collection event. The limit is 10 items per household.

Computer components:

  • Computers, printers, copiers, monitors*, keyboards, speakers, mice, cables, PDAs
  • Software, CDROM/floppy disks, UPS, tablet computers
  • Computer parts including but not limited to: circuit boards, hard drives, optical drives, power supplies, ribbon cables, RAM
  • Networking equipment, hubs, switches, routers, cables, modems, scanners
  • Ink cartridges

Entertainment:

  • Televisions*, VCRs, radios, stereo equipment, tape recorders, record players, remote controls, MP3 players, compact disc players, e-readers
  • Electronic toys, amplifiers, electronic keyboards
  • Hand-held gaming devices, game consoles, Walkmans, sewing machines
  • Digital cameras, camcorders

Communication Devices and Other Electronics:

  • Cash registers, typewriters, adding machines, calculators
  • Copiers, duplicators, voice recorders
  • Label makers
  • Portable power banks and coin counters
  • Telephones, PBX systems, answering machines, fax machines
  • CB radios, ham radios, cell phones, pagers, Black Berry/Palm Units, GPS units, Bluetooth serial port adapter
  • Rechargeable batteries, battery chargers and adapters, surge strips
  • Video recorders, video monitors, security systems, walki-talkies

Miscellaneous: cables/cords/wire

*not accepted: broken glass cathode-ray-tube televisions or broke glass cathode-ray-tube monitors. For a complete listing of items not accepted, please visit the Champaign County RRR webpage at www.co.champaign.il.us/rrr.

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Illini Gadget Garage Hours Set, Courses Begin

Illini Gadget Garage project team
Photo by Joyce Seay-Knoblauch. Pictured (left to right): William Bullock, professor of industrial design, Joy Scrogum, coordinator of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative, and Martin Wolske, research scientist and adjunct faculty member in library and information science.

In case you missed it, check out the UI News Bureau coverage of the Illini Gadget Garage project. Thanks to Jodi Heckel for helping spread the word!

As noted in this article, the Gadget Garage will open to the general campus community for repair assistance on Monday, September 14. Fall hours will be Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 2 to 6 p.m.

Professors Martin Wolske and William Bullock are also teaching courses associated with the Gadget Garage, with classes beginning this week. Professor Bullock’s class is a multidisciplinary effort with the following course objectives:

  • Collaborate with peers from business, design & technology in planning and startup
  • Experience project management, leadership and team building
  • Create a business and marketing plan to insure success going forward
  • Plan and implement new branding, advertising and wayfinding strategies
  • Participation in the iFixit Technical Writing Project (a unique portfolio piece)
  • Knowledge to create more sustainable designs and extend product life cycles

Professor Bullock is particularly interested in having students with interests in marketing and engineering participate alongside their peers from industrial design. A few seats are still available; interested students should see the course flyer and contact Professor Bullock directly with questions. Professor Wolske’s Introduction to Network Systems class will be meeting in the Gadget Garage space, and students will have opportunities to work on service learning projects associated with this project for the course.

See the Illini Gadget Garage page on the Sustainable Electronics Initiative web site for more information on the courses and the project itself, including a map of its location. General questions can be addressed to Joy Scrogum.

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Illini Gadget Garage Project Will Extend Useful Life of Student and Staff Owned Electronics

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and SEI are pleased to announce that a team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign consisting of SEI coordinator Joy Scrogum (ISTC), William Bullock (Art + Design), Martin Wolske, and Jon Gant (both of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science) has recently received funding from the Student Sustainability Committee for a project entitled “Illini Gadget Garage: Education through Electronic Product Life Extension.” This seed funding will be used to launch a center where UI students and staff will bring their personal electronic devices for assistance with assessment and repair. The center will be called the Illini Gadget Garage. Using the same “collaborative repair” model employed at the campus bike shop and MakerSpace Urbana’s computer Help Desk, clients with devices in need of repair/troubleshooting will work together with Gadget Garage student staff and volunteers to perform the necessary device assessment and maintenance activities. Depending upon the situation, activities may range from guidance on how to make your computer/device run faster to actual repair and replacement of components. Continue reading “Illini Gadget Garage Project Will Extend Useful Life of Student and Staff Owned Electronics”

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Special Edition of Challenges Journal on E-waste Issues Re-Opened, Submissions Due 12/31/15

challenges-logoBack in 2013, ISTC Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist and current SEI Coordinator, Joy Scrogum, and ISTC Affiliated Faculty Scientist, William Bullock, served as guest editors for a special issue of the journal Challenges, entitled “Electronic Waste–Impact, Policy and Green Design.” 

The journal’s editors recently received multiple requests to reopen this special issue. Scrogum and Bullock have once again agreed to serve as editors.

From the issue’s rationale:

“Electronics are at the heart of an economic system that has brought many out of poverty and enhanced quality of life. In Western society in particular, our livelihoods, health, safety, and well being are positively impacted by electronics. However, there is growing evidence that our disposal of electronics is causing irreparable damage to the planet and to human health, as well as fueling social conflict and violence.

While global demand for these modern gadgets is increasing, policy to handle the increased volumes of electronic waste has not kept pace. International policy governing safe transfer, disposal, reclamation, and reuse of electronic waste is nonexistent or woefully lacking. Where laws do exist about exporting and importing hazardous waste, they are routinely circumvented and enforcement is spotty at best. While European Union countries lead the way in responsible recycling of electronic and electrical devices under various EU directives, most industrialized nations do not have such policies. In the U.S., for example, most electronic waste is still discarded in landfills or ground up for scrap.

It is imperative that we consider how green design practices can address the growing electronic waste problem. This special issue is meant to do just that and spur discussions on how electronic products can become greener and more sustainable.”

If you are interested in submitting a paper for this special issue, please send a title and short abstract (about 100 words) to the Challenges Editorial Office at challenges@mdpi.com, indicating the special issue for which it is to be considered. If the proposal is considered appropriate for the issue, you will be asked to submit a full paper. Complete instructions for authors and an online submission form for the completed manuscripts are available on the Challenges web site at http://www.mdpi.com/journal/challenges/special_issues/electronic-waste#info. The deadline for manuscript submissions is December 31, 2015.

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ISTC Receives Gold Level Recognition from the State Electronics Challenge

SEIgold The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), the parent organization for the Sustainable Electronics Initative (SEI), has received Gold Level recognition from the State Electronics Challenge for activities in 2014. The State Electronics Challenge (SEC) is a free, voluntary program for non-federal public sector organizations (e.g. schools, local governments, universities, libraries, etc.) and non-profit organizations, which encourages responsible management of office equipment via more sustainable purchasing, reducing the impacts of devices during use, and managing obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe way. Participants, or “partners” as they’re referred to in the program, can elect to focus efforts on one or more life cycle phases: purchasing, use, and end-of-life management. Guidance on addressing impacts in these life cycle phases is provided via the SEC web site, partners-only webinars, and direct assistance from SEC staff members. Partners are not required to perform any given activity, but if they wish to apply to the optional recognition program, there is a checklist of activities that must be completed to achieve different recognition levels.

Partners are eligible for recognition for their accomplishments as follows:

  • Gold recognition: completed General Requirements & all activities in 3 lifecycle phases
  • Silver recognition: completed General Requirements & completed all activities in 2 lifecycle phases
  • Bronze recognition: completed General Requirements & all activities in 1 lifecycle phase

ISTC was in fact the first organization in IL to become a SEC partner, back in 2011, but 2014 was the first year for which it sought recognition for its activities, after having developed a written policy for purchase, use, and disposal of its IT equipment as part of its internal sustainability committee’s efforts. Of SEC’s 150 current partners, only nine are from Illinois, and, of those, just two earned recognition at any level in 2014. See the complete list of 2014 Partner Award recipients on the SEC web site. As you can see from the picture included in this post, the recognition plaque is appropriately made out of recycled circuit boards.

One of the benefits of being an SEC partner is the receipt of an “environmental sustainability report” for the year, with a summary of the environmental benefits of your organization’s efforts, in easy to understand equivalencies. For example, in ISTC’s 2014 report, we can see that the reduction in energy use resulting from our purchasing, use, and reuse and recycling efforts was equivalent to the amount of electricity to power 25 homes/year. To see an example of the report partners receive, see ISTC’s full Environmental Sustainability Report from SEC for calendar year 2014.

If you wish to learn more about the State Electronics Challenge, don’t miss the upcoming free SEC webinar, “Introduction to the State Electronics Challenge” Tuesday, May 19, 2015 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CDT. You can register for the webinar online at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4400751674919799810.

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Smartphone Encore Challenge Finalists to be Announced in Earth Day Webinar

smartphone-encore-challenge-logo-v02In a previous post, I wrote about a new electronics-related competition debuted this year: the Smartphone Encore Challenge. The Challenge is a collaboration of Sprint, HOBI International, Brightstar, and Net Impact in which student teams were challenged to find profitable and innovative ways to repurpose old smartphones or their components. Participation was limited to the first 25 teams or individuals to register.

The winning individual or team will receive $5,000, which can be used toward attending a Startup Weekend to help take their business idea to the next level. The winners will also receive strategic guidance from executives at Sprint, Brightstar, and HOBI to strengthen their business model.

Tomorrow, April 22, 2015–Earth Day–Net Impact will present an “Issues in Depth” webinar, featuring the concepts of the winners of the Smartphone Encore Challenge and two runners-up. The webinar, entitled “The Circular Economy is Calling: Closing the Loop in the Smartphone Industry,” will also feature Darren Beck, Director of Environmental Initiatives at Sprint, who will share the successes and challenges of applying closed-loop strategies to Sprint’s business. The webinar begins at 11:00 CDT and you can register online at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6002673046428866561.

I can’t wait to see what the winning students have come up with! For more inspiring sustainable electronics ideas from college and university students, visit the Sustainable Electronics Initiative YouTube channel, where you can find winning entry videos from past years of the SEI International Sustainable Electronics Competition.

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Free Champaign County (IL) Electronics Collection Scheduled for April 11

thumb1A free countywide residential electronics collection event will be held on Saturday, April 11, 2015 from 8 AM to noon at Parkland College, 2400 W. Bradley Ave., Champaign, IL. The collection will be in Parking Lot M; enter from Duncan Rd.

Residents may bring the following electronics items (working or non-working) to the collection event. The limit is 10 items per household.

Computer components:

  • Computers, printers, copiers, monitors*, keyboards, speakers, mice, cables, PDAs
  • Software, CDROM/floppy disks, UPS, tablet computers
  • Computer parts including but not limited to: circuit boards, hard drives, optical drives, power supplies, ribbon cables, RAM
  • Networking equipment, hubs, switches, routers, cables, modems, scanners
  • Ink cartridges

Entertainment:

  • Televisions*, VCRs, radios, stereo equipment, tape recorders, record players, remote controls, MP3 players, compact disc players, e-readers
  • Electronic toys, amplifiers, electronic keyboards
  • Hand-held gaming devices, game consoles, Walkmans, sewing machines
  • Digital cameras, camcorders

Communication Devices and Other Electronics:

  • Cash registers, typewriters, adding machines, calculators
  • Copiers, duplicators, voice recorders
  • Label makers
  • Portable power banks and coin counters
  • Telephones, PBX systems, answering machines, fax machines
  • CB radios, ham radios, cell phones, pagers, Black Berry/Palm Units, GPS units, Bluetooth serial port adapter
  • Rechargeable batteries, battery chargers and adapters, surge strips
  • Video recorders, video monitors, security systems, walki-talkies

Miscellaneous: cables/cords/wire

*not accepted: broken glass cathode-ray-tube televisions or broke glass cathode-ray-tube monitors. For a complete listing of items not accepted, please visit the Champaign County RRR webpage at www.co.champaign.il.us/rrr.