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John: This is The Business Makers show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. I'm John Whiteside, and I'm here with Brenden Macaluso, the creator and designer of a green-friendly computer called Recompute. Thanks for joining us, Brenden.
Brenden: Thanks, John. Thanks for having me here.
John: So, tell us a little about Recompute.
Brenden: Recompute is a sustainable desktop computer design that is essentially made out of corrugated cardboard. It's a real, working computer that came together from some of my thesis study work at the University of Houston in industrial design.
John: So, what gave you this idea to make Recompute?
Brenden: I was researching sustainability in product design for my thesis work. I was trying to understand what that meant. And what happened was, I figured out kind of a recipe or a framework of how things should be built, used, and then disposed of. And I plugged in what I call a problematic object-in this case, a computer-to that kind of recipe, and the final result ended up being Recompute.
John: So you were trying to make a computer that's recyclable?
Brenden: Okay. Well, here's the thing. Well, people have seen the pictures of it, and their immediate reaction is like, oh, this thing's made out of cardboard. It can be recycled. Yeah, this is true, but that's not the entire point of the design. There's a framework that went into this computer, and what I was looking at was what I call the front end, the middle end, and the back end. So the front end is like the manufacturing and all the stuff that goes into building it. The middle end is the user, how we end up using it in our lives, us as the consumer. The back end is, well, what do we do with it after it's dead or we're ready to dispose of it; how do we address those issues? And so I had to break these different levels down, and I thought about manufacturing and how much it takes. I like to use a food analogy. Think about Thanksgiving dinner, and think about all the effort it takes to make Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes it's a day and a half or 2 days worth of work-all the time, the labor, the energy, the cost of the food, everything-and in the end, your stomach doesn't know that it took 2 days to prepare the food.
John: Right.
Brenden: Then think about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and how easy that is. And you eat it, and your stomach feels fine. So I was looking at the manufacturing processes of computers and saw how complicated it was, and I realized there's a lot of wasted time and resources and energy going into this thing that we're going to ultimately throw away in 3-5 years. So I just simplified it down.
John: So why did you choose cardboard?
Brenden: That's a good question. Actually, what I really wanted to use was a type of plastic. But I said, you know, what would make a really extreme example to kind of prove my own hypothesis based on my research? And some other fellow designers and I were kicking around some ideas, and someone said, "What about just cardboard? That would be crazy if you made a working computer out of cardboard."
John: Yeah.
Brenden: And so I said, I might do that, and it will prove the point. So actually it's a very extreme example of what can be done.
John: Right, right.
Brenden: So, it's kind of trying to open the book on rethinking about how we're using materials and processes and stuff to make objects.
John: So let me ask you this. If I wanted to, say, change the RAM out, can I get into the computer? Or is it just basically, you've manufactured it, and it's stuck that way, and that's it.
Brenden: The case itself is layered up cardboard-
John: Right.
Brenden: -that's held together with white glue.
John: Okay.
Brenden: And all of the electronic components are friction-fit to the case. And the case opens up with no tools. It has a tab you pull with your finger, and basically it kind of unwraps, like taking a belt off.
John: Right, okay.
Brenden: You unwrap the sides of it, and then you have access to the motherboard and the hard drive and the power supply. So you can get in there, and you can pop in another stick of RAM if you need to.
John: So it has all the functioning aspects of a computer.
Brenden: It's a real, working computer. And, when I was doing my research, I pared the computer down to what I call the bare elements. What do you really need to have in a working computer? I said there's 3 electronic components that are needed. You need a motherboard. The 2nd part is you need some sort of hard drive. And the 3rd part is you need a power supply.
John: Right.
Brenden: And that's it. Those are the 3 parts of a working computer.
John: So it's a real simple design of a computer.
Brenden: Exactly, just what it needs to run. And I actually took an old computer and I took it apart, and I took all the electronic components, and then I attached them to a piece of plywood. And I took that piece of plywood and mounted it on the wall. I said, "Here it is! Here's a working computer."
John: So you had a working computer mounted on a piece of plywood on the wall.
Brenden: Yeah. Hanging on the wall, yeah.
John: And it worked just fine. I could surf the internet and everything else.
Brenden: Yeah, it worked fine. Yeah. It didn't look pretty, it's just like all the guts sticking out, but-the wires are everywhere, but-yeah, it was a working computer.
John: Okay, okay.
Brenden: And that was proof that, all right, I'm on the right track of this, because I was left over with all of these case components. And I took them all apart, and I spread them all over the floor, and I said, "Man, there is a ton of parts here!"
John: That you just don't need.
Brenden: Yeah, that you don't need. I mean, some of the stuff is, you need something to house it in. You can't just leave it bare bones. But it seemed excessive. And actually the design of it, I also realized that USB has become a really popular thing on computers, all these USB gadgets and gizmos, hard drives-
John: Right. You can hook almost anything up to a USB.
Brenden: Exactly. It's like, it's like an outlet in a house now. Imagine all the different things you can plug into an outlet at your house. USB has become that way with the computer.
John: Right.
Brenden: And, I made the computer to have 8 USB ports.
John: Wow.
Brenden: And part of that is the flexibility of letting people-
John: Decide what they want to add to it?
Brenden: Exactly. Exactly, what they need. So the computer has enough components in it to run as a computer, and depending on what your needs are, you can add or subtract components to it. If you need wireless, you can plug a wireless adaptor into it. If you need additional hard drive space, you can plug a hard drive into it. But it also gives the flexibility of going to different machines. And so if you wanted to have multiple machines but you don't want to have multiple drives for something, you can unplug it and move it somewhere else. Just like in the house. You can move the lamp to a different room and plug it in to a different outlet.
John: Right, right. I want to talk more about Recompute here with Brenden Macaluso after this. You're listening to The Businessmakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.
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John: This is The Businessmakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. I'm John Whiteside. I'm here with Brenden Macaluso, the creator and designer of Recompute. You were just talking about how universal Recompute can be, but you made it out of cardboard. Are you worried about it catching on fire or anything?
Brenden: That's been a really interesting comment. People are like, oh man, this thing's cardboard, it's going to catch on fire.
John: Right. Right.
Brenden: I guess people are kind of knee-jerk reacting to the material and what they associate with the material. The cardboard kind of idea kind of popped in my mind when I was cooking a frozen pizza.
John: So, I know exactly what you're talking about. You put it on a piece of cardboard and you put it in the oven.
Brenden: It has that round cardboard thing, right? And you pop it in the oven.
John: That's right.
Brenden: Does it catch on fire?
John: No, or else I would have burned pizza and it would be gross. [laughter]
Brenden: It doesn't catch on fire. And after researching it some more, I realized the combustibility point of cardboard from heat, just ambient heat, is about 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
John: Right.
Brenden: The computer doesn't get that hot.
John: Right.
Brenden: Now, if you have something, for example, that shorts out, and it's shooting sparks out of it, and an internal part caught on fire like the motherboard, yeah, then the case could catch on fire, but-
John: But if you have that with a regular computer you have a whole other set of problems too, right?
Brenden: It's the same thing.
John: Yeah.
Brenden: I mean, it's like saying my house is made out of wood, we have electrical lines in it, is it going to catch on fire? Well, yeah, if something shorts out and, you know, the outlet shoots sparks onto the carpet, yeah, then it's going to catch on fire. So, it would only end up catching on fire if some internal part shorted out and caught on fire. It's not going to catch on fire just from ambient heat of the running components.
John: Right, and I'm not putting it over an open flame. [laughter]
Brenden: No, not, no I wouldn't put it in the oven, and maybe try to make a pizza on it.
John: Now, making the computer out of cardboard, are you worried about RF interference?
Brenden: That's been a really interesting concern people have brought up. The Recompute is a concept. It's not a on-the-market, for-sale product. To me, as a designer, it's pretty flushed out, but it's not perfect. It still needs some more work. And part of the additional modification I would like to do to it would be to address the RF issue. What it needs to be within proper standards. I'm not there yet. It's a working concept, and the point of it is to get people to think in other ways, to change our thinking in how we're dealing with technology, computers, and manufacturing, and use, and disposal. That's what it's really about. It's not saying I'm going to make computers out of cardboard. It's about rethinking about how we're doing all of this, and this is just an extreme example.
John: So you have pretty good airflow with corrugated cardboard, correct?
Brenden: Actually, in the computer-the corrugation actually is part of the ventilation system. So the airflow just comes up through the bottom of the computer, around the motherboard, and then it comes out the top. The whole thing is a giant vent, basically.
John: Well, that makes sense, yeah. So you don't even have to worry about it overheating-
Brenden: It doesn't get hot. If you see it run, you're like, there it is, running. It doesn't get hot at all. You can open the case and look at it, and it runs fine.
John: Now you mentioned the inspiration for this project as you were going to a recyclable place where you saw a bunch of computers stacked up.
Brenden: Mmmm-hmmm.
John: And that's part of the reason you designed this was you wanted to make a computer that was easily, I guess, disposed of, the end product of it.
Brenden: Well, in my research I came across the fact that in many designs for different types of products, all the thought's gone into, you know, how are we going to build it and how we're going to market it, and then actually maybe how the person is going to use it. But a lot of times what's not thought about is what happens when we're done using this thing, and this thing has kind of reached the end of its life? The easy answer for a long time was we throw it away.
John: Right.
Brenden: Now a more updated answer to that is we recycle it, but that's still a very broad term. And I said, well, what's the deal with the computer or other electronics too? Like, what's part of the issues that are surrounding it? There's a couple things. First of all, any kind of circuit board, so like a motherboard or a hard drive or any kind of electronic device needs to be, recycled isn't the right word, but let's say-
John: Disposed of properly?
Brenden: Properly disposed of, yeah. Because they can have heavy metals in them, which is like lead, cadmium, mercury that need to be taken care of. An actually, they also have precious metals in them, too, silver and gold for connectors.
John: Right.
Brenden: And they can be disposed of properly, but it's often not done because these electronic pieces are inside of these cases. And if they're nice to drop them off at a recycling center versus just tossing them, they have to be dismantled. And the dismantling of them is a lot of work, because you're at a place where all these different types of things come in, now we have to take the energy to unscrew this and unplug that and put the right pieces in the right bins. So that's a lot of labor. And what ends up happening is some of this stuff gets shipped off to, like, Africa, China, and other parts of south Asia to be dismantled there where the labor is cheap, and they end up burning all those circuit boards in the big fire, and that's a whole other toxic mess. That's a whole other issue with e-waste that needs to be addressed. But what I was trying to do was deal with the dismantling aspect of it, even with regular computers. So, let's say we did dismantle it right. We put the circuit boards where they're supposed to be ground up, and they separate the metals out of them. I have this, like, plastic and metal case of all these different parts; what do I do with this now?
John: Right.
Brenden: It's actually a physical waste problem, that one, just this big, bulky case.
John: Right.
Brenden: And, again, you have to separate the plastics and the types of metals apart if you wanted to recycle it. So I said, well, let me simplify all of this again. To dismantle this thing when you're done using it, you can cut it with a box cutter. You just cut it open. Or you can yank the parts out, or you can soak it in a bucket of water. [laughter] You know, it's, it's, because it's cardboard. You know? It's just like, how hard is it to cut up cardboard, I mean...
John: Yeah, I mean, I step on cardboard boxes all the time.
Brenden: Yeah, you flatten them and put them out there to be recycled. Yeah, so, I was like, well, that's part of it. If we can make it easy to dismantle, then it's more likely to be disposed of properly. So that way we can take the big concern, which is those electronic components, and deal with them properly. And then the cardboard case? It's just cardboard. And it goes with any kind of other cardboard and paper recycling. It just simplifies the whole equation of the process and how to get it done so it's more likely to be done.
John: Well Brenden, unfortunately we ran out of time on the radio portion of our interview, but if you can stick around I would like to go into the manufacturing process of Recompute as BusinessMakers WebXtra. And you can hear this WebXtra on The BusinessMakers website. Just go to www.thebusinessmakers.com and look for the WebXtra with Brenden Macaluso. This is The Businessmakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.