Back to the University of Buenos Aires yesterday for a follow-up visit with some second year students who designed and built products from chopped-up Danone yogurt containers. It was fun to chat with the students and see the look of pride on their faces as they described the process they went through to design and make the objects. We asked them questions about how difficult it was to use the press, and whether they had any quality issues, or whether they had to change the design from what they intended to do in the first place. The co-ops we’re working with won’t be using yogurt containers but it was still useful to talk to anyone who had actual experience using the Hotpress. Soon we’ll need to transfer that experience to the co-ops…

Click here to view a video of WfL Buenos Aires Project Manager Erica Lee talking to students at the University of Buenos Aires about their manufacturing technique

(Speaking of the Hotpress, we have been collecting feedback on failure modes and issues and compiling them to make the next hotpress, the fifth in the world, better. Liliana, who takes care of the Hotpress in the lab in the basement of architecture/design school of University of Buenos Aires and Salvador who works for the equipment builder were very excited and proud of the fact that they were going to be part of designing the Best Hotpress Ever for the cartonero co-ops. So very Argentinian – to be so proud of being the best!)

Within minutes several students that wanted to help us were gathered around and we’d agreed on a few dates to do some studio time and let them play around with the press, with various materials and make up some prototypes, perfect the process and ultimately, help the co-operatives learn to do the same.

Tomorrow, we take a bus then a train then a taxi to Moron, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to meet with Maria Virginia from Abuela Naturaleza to discuss our pilot phase!