Summary of Projects and Outcomes

Summary of Project and Outcomes

I have experienced what it is like to not be able to go out the door to exercise and what it can do to you mentally. At the moment I am going to treatment with a physiotherapist for a knee injury from a year ago. I can imagine how difficult it is for someone who is still in the beginning or halfway through the rehabilitation process, who is still limited in movement, who really needs this. In addition, a great motivation for me is what my contribution would be, stimulating home fitness, contributing to a perhaps new open source world of a combination of sports and bioplastics.

Some friends of mine who live abroad have been fined for outdoor exercising, as seen in the conversation between me and a friend of mine, Jim who does skateboarding at a high level. In regard to motivation for this project this was a factor as well.

Screenshot from a conversation beteen me and Jim through Instagram

Me: I was kicked out by enforcement last night because they had received reports of people not keeping a distance. - Jim: Jezus that’s ***. We allready got fined at landje (skatepark) while we did nothing wrong. I’m going to file an objection anyway. Me: I did hear it, that’s ***.

At first I looked at the different fitness materials to make a choice that I was going to focus on and chose a balance cushion. In addition, I looked at what can be trained with which fitness equipment and concluded that a balance cushion is good for a full body workout and takes up just a little space. Weights are difficult to make from bioplastics, if you want to make something heavy from bioplastic then it will become very large and many people are limited in space as well. Imagine you want to make weights out of gelatin based bioplastic, it is very light material so it has to be very big to create a bit of a mass. The mold you will need for such a thing would be too big and such a mold is not available to everyone. Furthermore, such a mold is even more difficult to create at home with limited resources and it would take a long time to dry and on the other hand longer time for fungus to develop.

I started with a small sample to see what kind of composition I will make it. Because of previous experiments with bioplastics, I remember that agar and gelatin can mimic what a balance pillow can do. You can squeeze it and it feels bouncy.

Image above: Me on a balance cushion. Image below: Small samples made from agar (left) and gelatin (right).

I had tested them for durability and gelatin came out as the best. When I squeezed the agar as hard as I could it was staying in the shape as I squeezed, in addition the agar shrunk enormously that it was twice as small as the gelatin based sample. Gelatin on the other hand remained in the same shape after squeezing it very hard, it almost seemed like it inflated itself again.

Afterwards I started to make it bigger and experiment with different molds to see if it should be flat or rounded. I used the housing from a broken clock as a mold and from a salad/mixing bowl. In the end I went for the rounded shape because it is more challenging for the exercises and the flat shaped could function more like a yoga or fitness mat.

Image above: The rounded and flat samples. Image below: The molds i used for these samples.

Then I started to make it even bigger with the focus to keep it as long as possible. While grocery shopping I found a large salad bowl that could function as a perfect mold. The hardest things I encountered were that it took longer to dry and fungus had more time to develop. adding soap in my recipe and storing it properly allowed me to fight mold. I kept it properly by keeping it next to an open window as much as possible and regularly flipping the balance cushion over, even after a workout.

The mold I found while grocery shopping with the balance cushions

I also looked at the material properties of how much time it needs to feel a difference in hardness. Because the balance cushion gets harder over time every week, you do different exercises every week. Hereby you can maintain a weekly sports schedule based on the hardness of the cushion.

I had presented my concept to my physiotherapist and asked what her point of view was. She thought it was a good and creative idea and because of the material I used it made sense that it will work. She also liked the fact that it is accessible to everyone, to be able to make it with items you have in your house, because movement during the lockdown is important for both physical and mental. Some patients in treatment have email contact and the physiotherapist can give exercises that you can do with that balance cushion. Exercises that are good for both general and rehabilitation. She recommended the exercises I did on balance cushions before are good for anyone who wants to do a workout and gave me more exercises and gave me more exercises to train other muscles in my body besides my legs. Because the exercises I do are often done more intensively, it would be a great idea to spread the exercises over the weeks.

Instead of during one workout to train only your legs, for example, you do different exercises for your 10 whole body during a workout.