In March, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the UC Berkeley campus to shut down, our team stopped all in-person meetings.
For a team primarily focused on engineering research, stopping in-person meetings meant essentially pausing all progress on our research. Sadly, none of our team members have been able to access our lab space since March, and all portions of the project have been put on hold.
Once we transitioned to a remote semester, we shifted our focus away from our in-person research, and instead, the team focused on completing projects that could (mostly) be done online. In some ways, this break was beneficial as it allowed us to refocus on remote projects that Lauren had wanted to complete for some time, but since in-person research had always been a priority, these projects were often overlooked.
With more time to devote to online projects, the team started working on a Life Cycle Analysis of 3D-printed recycled and virgin filament and an Economic Analysis of our project. We met regularly throughout the Spring 2020 semester and over the summer to gather research and analysis for these new projects. Although most of the work for these analyses can be done remotely, we have found that to get the most accurate results, we will have to wait to gather more exact measurements once we get back to the lab.
So far, these have been our team quarantine projects, and we will continue to add to them throughout the remote semester. As these projects get closer to completion, we will be adding new quarantine projects for our team members to work remotely.
Check back soon for a report on our Life Cycle and Economic Analyses!
This blog post was written by Brooke Chang.
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