The Abstract:

According to Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability, 35,000 tons of clothing and textiles are thrown away in the city each year. I created Drop and Shop to lower that number. By providing a place for students to drop off clothes they don’t want anymore and others to shop for free, new-to-them items, fewer clothes go to landfills. Students can stop by anytime, and anyone is allowed to shop, regardless of whether they’ve dropped clothes.

I officially started in March by putting a poster and collection box out on the first floor. I also launched an Instagram account to promote the project. The racks and hangers are borrowed from Ben Franklin Community Closet, and SLA’s vocational training program helped me organize everything. In the past five weeks, over 200 items have been dropped and 85+ shopped.

I created a spreadsheet for inventory of the clothes and updated it at least once a week. I then made graphs showing how the number of items each week varied, as well as the frequency of items and sizes. I’ll provide an analysis during my presentation.

I’ve heard lots of positive feedback so I decided to keep the Drop and Shop running until the end of the year. My goal is to find a purpose for each item, meaning that none will go to landfills. There is also a 10th-grader who is going to continue it after I graduate.

As clothing production and processing exacerbate the climate crisis, programs like these are the future.

The Product:

A google drive folder including the guidelines, some people shopping, posters I made, and pictures of the setup throughout the weeks.

The Instagram account: @sla.drop.and.shop

Annotated bibliography

For my capstone, I wanted to find out how I improve the experience of volunteers at non profits using 3D printed using computer aided design that I learned in CTE Engineering, specifically a cloud-based 3D modeling software platform by the name of Fusion 360.

The goal was to create a design for a produce cutting tool for uses in a non-profit food distributor to the local homeless population for volunteers to use, named Manna on Main Street, located at 420 N 20th St, Philadelphia, PA 19130.

I had decided to bring other seniors to volunteer at Manna with me, however I encountered obstacles of the product I made being too small to function, and for the size to be able to properly be used as intended, the 3D printer would not allow for such size. When speaking to people at Manna, they informed me that foreign objects were not allowed in the kitchen, so that hindered the completion of my capstone in that regard.

Fusion 360 Designs:

Final Product:

Bibliography: