Two CCHS students attending iLEAD Academy have tackled solving the problem of microplastics as their Technology Student Association (TSA) project.
Like many, you may be wondering what are microplastics?
Dictionary.com defines it as extremely small plastic debris in the environment resulting from the disposal and breakdown of consumer products and industrial waste.
Lilly Frye, who is working on this project with Jack Chowning, explained that microplastics are in just about everything. The tiny beads in hand sanitizer and face wash are a couple of the unexpected sources of microplastics, while the most common are found in plastic dishes and silverware.
The duo decided to create a model using a blender that is vacuum sealed to test their methods of removing microplastics. They attempted to break down a small play-doh container to see if its byproducts would remain with their vacuum-sealed tester or be released into the atmosphere.
They hope to partner with a corporation like Dow, one of our U.S. 42 community partners, to work on the problem, Lilly said.
Their fellow Panther, Keydi Auxume Soto, chose to design a tiny house as part of the architectural design portion of the TSA contest.
“I chose the tiny house because it’s really beautiful and the philosophy for a tiny house is more comfortable to me,” Keydi said.
A budding architect, Keydi drew the plans for her tiny house by hand before designing it on a computer then producing it with a 3D printer.
“This design can go everywhere,” she said. It took three tries to get it printed and three or four months to draw and design the tiny house.
The TSA competition is next week in Louisville. The theme for this year’s TSA conference is Evolution of Excellence.