Donations are being accepted to support the International Sustainable Electronics Competition, part of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC). These donations are used for cash prizes in the competiiton and program administrative costs. There are five sponsorship levels: “Friend” is for donations up to $99; “Bronze” signifies gifts of $100 to $499; “Silver” donations are from $500 to $1499; “Gold” sponsors have provided $1500 to $4999 in support; and “Platinum” designates sponsors that have contributed $5000 or more. As a donor, you will be acknowledged on the competition web site unless you wish to remain anonymous. Corporations and organizations will have their logos and a link to their web site featured on the competition web site.
The competition began in 2009 as a local event on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and grew out of a class on e-waste issues taught by UIUC industrial design professor William Bullock. Participants focused on reuse of electronic scrap to make new products that first year. The event became international in 2010 with submission and judging occurring online. This continues currently, with entries including a brief YouTube video of the concept, among other requirements. The competition categories have evolved over time to include prevention as well as reuse, and for 2013, the categories have changed to “Product” and “Non-Product” to make the multidisciplinary nature and whole life-cycle focus of SEI more apparent. See our previous post, “International Sustainable Electronics Competition: New Name, New Categories, New Criteria” for further information on the changes for 2013 and the competition web site for complete rules, requirements, and videos for previous years’ winners. Also, check out the recently finalized list of expert jurors for 2013.
Each year, SEI staff members are amazed and inspired by the interesting and innovative ideas put forth by competition participants. It makes us proud to be part of this unique educational experience, which prompts college students and recent graduates throughout the world–society’s future leaders–to learn about and propose solutions for the environmental and social issues associated with our ubiquitous electronic devices. So consider even a modest $15 donation to show your support for inspiring students to conceive of new, more environmentally responsible ways to design, manufacture, use, and manage electronics. Contact Joy Scrogum (217-333-8948) for more information or see http://www.ewaste.illinois.edu/sponsors.cfm.
The jurors for this year’s International Sustainable Electronics Competition (formerly known as the International E-Waste Design Competition) have been announced. Returning again this year are past participants Bill Olson, Director of the Office of Sustainability and Stewardship for Mobile Devices Business, Motorola, Inc., and Jason Linnell, Executive Director of the National Center for Electronics Recycling (NCER). They are joined this year by: UIUC alum and President of HOBI International, Inc., Craig Boswell; competition founder, UIUC Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design and ISTC Affiliated Faculty Scientist, William Bullock; Executive Director of the Northeast Recycling Council and Program Manager for the State Electronics Challenge, Lynn Rubinstein; and CEO of iFixit and Dozuki, Kyle Wiens. For complete juror bios, see http://www.ewaste.illinois.edu/judges.cfm.
Registration is free and opens September 1, 2013. Participants are asked to explore solutions to remediate the existing e-waste problem, prevent e-waste generation in the future, and foster a more sustainable system for electronic device development, use, and management. Submissions include a project description, brief YouTube video, and bibliography. See the competition Rules for complete details on eligibility, categories, judging criteria, and submission requirements. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three entries in each of two categories. For more information on participating, incorporating the competition into a class, or sponsoring the competition, contact Joy Scrogumvia email or at 217-333-8948.
Karen Morrison, at her museum studies minor defense, May 10, 2013, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In addition to conducting and sponsoring research, the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), works to integrate principles of sustainability into the curricula and educational experiences of engineers, industrial designers, computer scientists and others involved in the design, manufacture, consumption, and end-of-life management of electronic products. With its location on the UIUC campus, SEI is well positioned to work with the academic community to address electronic product life cycle issues and sustainability, as well as to involve students in such considerations via internships and research projects. The connections to discplines such as industrial design, materials science, and electrical or computer engineering are fairly obvious. But we like to point out that sustainable electronics can relate to virtually any field of study, especially when you consider how ubiquitous electronics have become in our society. We all use and benefit from electronics, and are all in some way part of the system related to electronic device production and consumption, which must be made more sustainable as part of the overall effort of making human existence more sustainable. So we need to all be part of considering and creating those sustainable solutions, regardless of factors such as our individual area of expertise. As a fine example of this, we had the pleasure of working with a student this past semester (Spring 2013) who was minoring in Museum Studies here at UIUC. “We” being me, Joy Scrogum, Co-coordinator for SEI, and ISTC’s Environmental Education Specialist, Kirsten Hope Walker. Karen developed an interactive display related to sustainable electronics for use in outreach activities. She was a chemistry major, so she was comfortable with science and translating scientific concepts to the general public, but she had no previous experience considering the sustainability of electronic devices. So it was great to watch as she worked her way methodically through the issues with our guidance, and considered how to present them, effectively learning the material and then figuring out how to teach it to others. Karen wrote the blog post below, describing her experience. We’re extremely proud of this intelligent, resourceful, and affable young woman, especially given her recent acceptance of a position with the California Council of Science and Technology in Sacramento. Congratulations, Karen!
Interdisciplinary is the new buzzword in academic circles. Being interdisciplinary is all about crossing boundaries and using techniques and notions that were designed or developed in one field to benefit or answer questions in another. Interdisciplinary is often used synonymously with progress, radical ideals, and breaking barriers, and many of the original melded areas (chemical biology or women’s studies) are today recognized as established disciplines in their own right.
By its very nature, sustainable electronics is an interdisciplinary field. The lifecycle of electronics – development, manufacture, sale, disposal or reuse – touches aspects of computer science, environmental law, operations research, sociology, human rights, and economics. The questions and problems in creating and empowering sustainable electronics are complex and cannot be addressed with simple answers.
One of the biggest challenges in sustainable electronics, then, is translating this complex problem to you and me (and the broader society we live in) and encouraging us to respond in some way.
This is where being interdisciplinary becomes helpful. Presenting material and then probing the public to engage and respond is one of the central tenants of modern museum studies. Although it is easy to think of the science museum where every panel is carefully constructed with simplistic information, or the art museum where visitors are visually stimulated and left to form their own conclusions, modern museums are aiming to do so much more. Museums exist in a unique sphere where people from different backgrounds and experiences can come to one location and engage with questions that are faced by our current society.
My goal in working with the ISTC Sustainable Electronics Initiative was to apply the theories and paradigms of content display used by museums to SEI. This involved four key steps: narrowing down the material, identifying the audience, creating display material, and revising the material iteratively.
In my initial discussions with Joy and Kirsten, we loved the idea of an interactive globe to show how the physical materials in a laptop move across the globe, from raw materials to the final product and sale. Logistically, however, this was difficult to execute in a reasonable amount of time. We also wanted material that was flexible and could be used for adult or school-age audiences.
With that in mind, I developed a scrolling presentation that identified the locations that laptop materials came from, the factories where parts were manufactured and assembled, the countries where laptops are sold, and where laptops move after their first use. Although this presentation met many of our content needs, it didn’t allow for people to engage directly with the material or choose what topics they wanted to learn more about. In essence, we were feeding information to people rather than engaging or provoking them to dive deeper on their own.
This realization pushed me to a web-based platform. Web 2.0 allows users to navigate through many layers of material at their own pace based on their personal interests (much like you’re doing with this post now!). Ultimately, this platform addresses many of the fundamental questions we wanted to originally address and will hopefully spur more discussion about the complicated questions faced in creating and maintaining sustainable electronics!
The International E-Waste Design Competition has changed its name, categories, & judging criteria. The competition, now known as the International Sustainable Electronics Competition, is part of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC). It originated in 2009, when it emerged from a class on e-waste issues taught by industrial design Professor William Bullock, an affiliated faculty scientist at ISTC. The competition was focused entirely on reuse of electronic scrap during that first year. What began as a local UIUC event became an international competition in 2010, with submissions being made online by college students and recent graduates from around the world. The competition has evolved a bit each year, and grew to incorporate the entire life cycle of electronics, rather than focusing solely on reuse. Organizers noticed that recent entries seemed to incorporate both prevention of e-waste generation (through design modifications to extend the useful product life cycle of electronic devices) and reuse of electronic scrap, regardless of whether or not they were submitted for the “Prevention” or “Reuse” category. So for 2013, categories have been changed to “Product” and “Non-Product,” with the concepts of prevention and reuse integrated throughout the revised judging criteria. The new name and judging criteria are part of the continuing effort to better focus the competition on ideas for a sustainable system for the design, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life management for electronics. The competition has always been open to students in any discipline, but most entries were from engineering or industrial design students. The new categories will make the multidisciplinary nature of the competition more apparent, as “non-product” entries could more obviously be made by students from other fields.
To learn more about the competition and new categories, visit www.ewaste.illinois.edu. Entries include, among other elements, a brief project description paper and YouTube video summarizing the concept. Expert jurors award cash prizes to the top three projects in each category. Registration is free and will open on September 1, 2013. For more information, contact Joy Scrogum at jscrogum@illinois.edu or 217-333-8948.
College students and recent graduates from around the world were encouraged to submit their ideas for products and services. The entries were ideas that prevent e-waste generation through life-cycle considerations (E-Waste Prevention Category) or that incorporate e-waste components into a new and useful item (E-Waste Reuse Category). The competition is designed to prompt dialogue about product designs for environmentally responsible computing and entertainment. To read the full press release, click here.
The winners were announced during a ceremony on December 4, 2012 at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), the coordinating agency for Sustainable Electronics Initiative. ISTC is part of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois. The webinar will be archived on the ISTC web site at http://www.istc.illinois.edu/about/sustainability_seminars.cfm in the next few days. In the meantime, if you would like to watch the webinar, visit https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/594203991 and enter your email address if you had previously registered for the webinar. If you had not registered, you may do so, and then watch the webinar at that link.
Jurors awarded monetary prizes to the top three projects within each category, along with one honorable mention award. The first place winners will receive $3000, second place is $2000, and third place receives $1000. A total of $12,000 was awarded, which has been made possible through generous contributions by Peter Mcdonnell (Friend level) and Dell (Platinum level).
Winners were as follows (see the full press release for brief project descriptions):
Reuse Category
Platinum ($3000): digitizer. This concept was submitted by a pair of industrial design students from the University of Wisconsin-Stout: J. Makai Catudio and Ryan Barnes.
Gold ($2000): The Wake-Up Project. The Wake Up Project team consists of three industrial design students from the University of Wisconsin-Stout: Danny Kopren, Sam Wellskopf, and Lennon TeRonde.
Silver ($1000): Fluorescence Microscopy Using A Recycled Paper Scanner. This concept was submitted by a recent graduate in electrical engineering (Dustin Gallegos), and two current students, one in biomedical engineering (Lillian Hislop) and the other in general studies (ZhanHao Xi), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Prevention Category
Platinum ($3000): EverCloud. This team was comprised of five industrial design students from Auburn University: Sean Kennedy, Christi Talbert, Dylan Piper-Kaiser, Sarah Caudle, and Daniel Piquero.
Gold ($2000): E3: Energy Efficient Electricity. The concept was developed by three industrial design students from California State University at Long Beach: John Lee, Soyoung Bae, and Sam Sauceda.
Silver ($1000): loopbook—the future of computing. Loopbook was submitted by a recent graduate in product design and technology from the University of Limerick in Ireland, Damian Coughlan.
Honorable Mention
Sounds Amass.This concept was proposed by a recent graduate in industrial and product design from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Tai Ka Cheong.
The competition was started at UIUC in the fall of 2009. In 2010, the competition was expanded so students from all over the globe were able to submit their projects and an online video. Each project was judged on the project description and video. The international scope was evident through students who submitted entries from Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Turkey, and the United States. The jury was comprised of a variety of experts, including:
Jason Linnell, Executive Director, National Center of Electronics Recycling (NCER)
Bill Olson, Director, Office of Sustainability and Stewardship, Mobile Devices Business, Motorola, Inc.
Steven Samuels, Former Brand & Design Manager for ReCellular, Inc.
Kerstin Nelsen Strom, Ecodesign Section Chair, Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)
Jennifer Wyatt, Environmental Scientist, Materials Management Branch, U.S. EPA Region 5
Videos from the winning entries will soon be available on www.ewaste.illinois.edu. In the meantime they are available on the SEI YouTube Channel. And you can watch them below. Congratulations to the winners and all of our participants for choosing to be part of the solution to the growing e-waste problem by conceiving of how our electronic products could be produced, used, and disposed of in more sustainable ways. Stay tuned to the competition web site for more information, coming in the new year, about the 2013 competition.
Dr. Carol Handwerker, Reinhardt Schuhmann Jr. Professor of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, will present “Sustainable Electronics: Lessons Learned from the RoHS and the Pb-free Transition.” Register online for this webinar at https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/712035655.
Abstract: With the impending ban on Pb in electronics in 2006, the consumer electronics industry world-wide began working together in the late ’90’s to define a standard Pb-free solder alloy for electronics manufacturing. The speed of the transition and the level of cooperation demonstrated in preparing industry to manufacture products with Pb-free solder provide benchmarks for sustainability-driven technology transitions in a rapidly changing global industry. What does this tell us about future changes in materials and processes as we learn more about the consequences of our electronics use?
SEI, the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), and ISTC are hosting a series of seminars this fall focused on sustainable electronics research and issues. Watch the SEI calendar for upcoming seminar dates. You may contact Nancy Holm, SEI Research Coordinator, to be added to the mailing list to receive email notifications of upcoming seminars.
Reminder: Registration for the 2012 International E-Waste Design Competition will close at 4:59 PM Central time, tomorrow, November 1, 2012. If you have registered and are working on a submission, be sure to submit all required information before that time. Once the deadline passes, you will no longer be able to access your online submission form using your log in and password.
Participants are encouraged to enter required information, such as contact information and proof of eligibility for team members, as soon as possible. Please do not wait until the last minute to submit all of your information and end up racing against time to get necessary files uploaded. When updating your entry, it is important to remember scroll all the way down to the bottom of the submission form and click on “Update Project Information.” This saves the new material you added to your entry. Failure to click on the “update” button could result in information not being saved. You don’t want to be disqualified for not having a complete entry because you forgot to click on the “update” button, so please make sure to click that before you sign out at any point.
Jurors will begin to assess entries after the deadline passes, and will make final decisions by the end of November. Winners will be announced on December 4, 2012, at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and via webinar. Details on registration for that webinar will be posted as the date approaches. Cash prizes, made possible by sponsors including Dell, Inc., will be awarded in each of two categories (E-Waste Prevention and E-Waste Reuse).
The incorporation of Design for Recyclability (DFR) in to the design process is an extremely critical step towards the creation of more recyclable electronics products. A product’s design can have the single greatest impact on both the logistics and the costs of the recycling process. Constraints set forth by the design can dictate not only the methodology used to recycle the product but also the revenues (or costs) generated from the recycling process. This presentation provides an overview of the application of DFR concepts to the design of electronics products.
SEI, the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), and ISTC are hosting a series of seminars this fall focused on sustainable electronics research and issues. Watch the SEI calendar for upcoming seminar dates. You may contact Nancy Holm, SEI Research Coordinator, to be added to the mailing list to receive email notifications of upcoming seminars.
Presenters include William Bullock, Affiliate with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art and Design, U of I at Urbana-Champaign; and Joy Scrogum, Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, Prairie Research Institute, U of I at Urbana- Champaign. Continue reading “Webinar Sept. 5–“Electronic Waste: Our Problem and What We Should Do About It””
