Sharps Reflection

Switching into ENGR 120 halfway through the first week of school and missing a class meant that I never got formally introduced to this project. However, my amazing group-mates quickly caught me up to speed and showed me what their initial ideas were. Basically, the goal was to design an alternative container for the "sharps" (broken blades, dull blades, etc) produced in class to be disposed. My group (Ann, Diana, and Kavi) decided that the safest way to dispose of sharps would be to avoid touching them at all - we quickly determined that our sharps container would need to break off sharps as well as store them.

In order to do this, we came up with a design that includes a reinforced slot with which one may break off the blade of an Olfa knife. Our design also includes a diagonal piece of metal glued onto the  side of the can
just under the slot to redirect the falling blade as it breaks off. This piece was put in place to ensure that if the container is dropped, a blade cannot fall back out if it happens to randomly fall at the correct angle. Instead, the slit is directly shielded by the piece.

We used a chickpea can for the container itself because we found the metal to be strong enough that an Olfa knife blade could not cut through it (even if that blade is sharp and has pressure exerted on it). We also kept in mind the project's theme of sustainability - because the entire contraption is made of one material (metal), the whole thing can be melted down without having to open it and take out the blades.

The main challenge we had with this project was that fact that we were not able to use the soldering iron. Being able to use it would have made the process significantly easier because then, we would not have had to use hot glue to secure all of the pieces together and the device would truly be made out of one material. We were lucky, though, because the rest of the project went fairly smoothly. The contraption we came up with snaps off the blade without one having to exert much pressure on it and the blade stays in the can, even when it is flipped upside down. I think we came up with a really elegant solution to a problem that the lab might face and I could definitely see the can being used in class during a work day, where it would just be set on the table and anyone who needs to use it would be able to.

                                       Side view                                                   Top view
 Until next time,

Ananya