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A Tale of Two Mice: Sustainable Electronics Design and Prototyping

Authors:

Vicente Arroyos,

Maria L K Viitaniemi,

Nicholas Keehn,

Vaidehi Oruganti,

Winston Saunders,

Bichlien H NguyenAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Article No.: 263, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519823

Published: 28 April 2022 Publication History

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Abstract

Electronics have become integral to all aspects of life and form the physical foundation of computing; however electronic waste (e-waste) is among the fastest growing global waste streams and poses significant health and climate implications. We present a design guideline for sustainable electronics and use it to build a functional computer mouse with a biodegradable printed circuit board and case. We develop an end-to-end digital fabrication process using accessible maker tools to build circuits on biodegradable substrates that reduce embodied carbon and toxic waste. Our biodegradable circuit board sends data over USB at 800 kbps and generates 12 MHz signals without distortion. Our circuit board dissolves in water (in 5.5 min at 100 °C, 5 hrs at 20 °C) and we successfully recover and reuse two types of chips after dissolving. We also present an environmental assessment showing our design reduces the environmental carbon impact (kg CO2e) by 60.2% compared to a traditional mouse.

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Index Terms

A Tale of Two Mice: Sustainable Electronics Design and Prototyping
1. Applied computing
2. Human-centered computing

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2022

3066 pages

ISBN:9781450391566

DOI:10.1145/3491101

Editors:
Simone Barbosa
PUC-Rio, Brazil
,
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan, USA
,
Caroline Appert
Université Paris-Saclay, France
,
David A. Shamma
Toyota Research Institute, USA

Copyright © 2022 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 28 April 2022

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CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 29 - May 5, 2022

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Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3659588
Lu J(2024)Empowering End-Users Toward Roles in Sustainable ComputingCompanion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3665131(55-58)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656156.3665131
Lu QYi SGan MHuang JZhang XYang YShen CYao L(2024)Degrade to Function: Towards Eco-friendly Morphing Devices that Function Through Programmed Sequential DegradationProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676464(1-24)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676464
Zhang ZHähnlein FMei YEnglhardt ZPatel SSchulz AIyer V(2024)DeltaLCAProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36435618:1(1-29)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2024
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Lu QDanielescu AIyer VLopes PYao L(2024)Ecological HCI: Reflection and FutureExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3643985(1-4)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Géczy AKrammer OTamus ZCsiszár A(2024)Low-Frequency Dielectric Tests of PLA/Flax Sustainable and Degradable PCB Substrates2024 IEEE 30th International Symposium for Design and Technology in Electronic Packaging (SIITME)10.1109/SIITME63973.2024.10814873(233-236)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2024
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Géczy APiffkó DBerényi RDusek KXavier PCuartielles D(2024)Implementation of microcontroller board on a sustainable and degradable PLA/flax composite substrate: a case studyNanotechnology10.1088/1361-6528/ad66d335:43(435201)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
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