The 3 R's Plastic Bag

Step 1

Design thinking is the process of thinking creatively to solve a day-to-day problem going through a creative problem-solving process. Design thinking is important when designing because it helps designers go through a process of testing and solving problems. This is the 3 R's plastic bag because it's reducible meaning it reduces waste, it's reusable because it can be used more than once and it's recyclable because it uses materials that have already been used. This design is a plastic bag that can help with carrying day to day things.

Supplies

-plastic water bottles

-iron

-string

-hole puncher

-scissors

-exact knife

-square grid mat or paper

-sharpie or black marker

-heavy books

-parchment paper

Step 1: Discovery and Interpretation

Empathy is putting yourself in another's shoes, this means to feel or understand what the other person is feeling. This fits with design thinking because in design thinking you have to think about the audience to know which are their needs and wants. In this design, my user was a friend. The interpretation phase is the phase where the designer knows their users or audience's drivers and constraints which are the user's wants and the challenges that the designer will be phasing. The drivers for my design were movable, washable, reusable, and simple. The challenges for my design were practical, secure, and manage weight.

Step 2: Ideation

Ideation is where the designer gets creative and starts coming up with several ideas for the design and starts drawing them on a paper using a 1-min timer.

Step 3: Prototype

To make this plastic bag there will be multiple steps to make it easier...

Step 4:

Step 1

First, grab about 6 plastic water or soda bottles and trace 2 lines with a sharpie in the flat parts. Then with the scissors or exact knife start cutting following the black lines. Next, trace a line along the side of the plastic to help you know where to cut. After doing this, the plastic will now look like it's rolled.

Step 5:

Step 2

After cutting all the plastic pieces, we will now start using the iron. But before we will grab 2 parchment papers to put on the top and on the bottom of the plastic and also a heavy pile of books or a heavy flat surface to help flat the plastic after it has been heated from the iron. When you finish getting all these materials we will now start by placing the two parchments on top and on the bottom of the plastic and the heavy books on a close table and start passing the hot iron slowly through the top parchment left to right and up and down. You will notice how the plastic will react towards the heat from the iron and it will start getting bubbles and start shrinking when it starts getting smaller grab it with one of the parchments and quickly put it on the table and place the books on top of it. While this piece of plastic is here start doing the next piece and then put it on the bottom of the books taking the 1st piece out and putting the 2nd piece in. Continue doing this process until you finish with all the pieces.

Step 6:

Step 3

After finishing with all the plastic, start by grabbing a squared grid to help you trace the dots with the sharpie. First do the longer parts and then do the top parts of the plastic. Try to make the dots have a distance of 2 squares using the grid.

Step 7:

Step 4

After finishing with putting the dots on all the plastic, start grabbing a hole puncher to help you make the holes. Following the dots you just made in the previous step continue on by making the hole in the same exact place. And repeat with all the other pieces.

Step 8:

Step 5

Now we will start putting the plastic bag together! To do this grab string and scissors, first cut a long string, estimating the longer length of the plastic. First pass the string through the hole and connect it with the other side by making a knot. Then put the other piece of the plastic beside the one that is currently with the knot and put the string on the first hole (if the holes aren't aligned with each other the string will go in a zigzag direction and if they are, it will go straight.) Next start by continuing pulling the string through the holes and following the pattern. When you get to the last hole of the plastic make a knot securing the 2 plastic pieces together.

Step 9:

Step 6

The part you did before was the bottom piece now we will continue to do this same process with the edges of the plastic bag, but first start by connecting another piece of plastic with the bottom one by doing the same with the string. And then when you have finished this, start by adding another piece and connecting it with first the bottom and then with the previous one side by side. Continue doing this with the other pieces connecting all the edges together and all the bottom pieces with the lower parts of the plastic that is forming the edges of the plastic bag.

Step 10:

Step 7

Now that we have finished putting it together lets do the straps that will be the ones that will help us carry the bag. There are 2 ways of making this straps, the first one is simply just cutting 4 pieces of string and connecting 2 in one side by tying a knot and 2 on the other side. The second one is by cutting 6 pieces of string and making 2 braids of 3, to then tie to the plastic bag. And after this step the plastic bag is finished!