Satko’s Campus Aware system, recycling plastic bottles into 3D printing filament linked to a web based rewards app, received this 12 months’s Elon Innovation Problem.
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Aaron Satko ’25 is at all times on the lookout for issues to unravel.
When he encounters one — computerized doorways that don’t work good, cardboard transport packing containers that waste an excessive amount of house — he jots it down in a pocket book he carries. Then his thoughts will get to work, roiling and churning it over, ready for the spark of invention to ignite.
Studying of this 12 months’s Elon Innovation Problem — centered on waste discount — his ideas leapt to the big quantity of trash created by our consumption of single-use plastic bottles. Globally, we use an estimated 1.2 million plastic bottles per minute with lower than 9% of these recycled.
Satko, a pc science main from Lewisville, North Carolina, had heard of plastic bottles being recycled as 3D-printing filament. The actual drawback he wished to unravel was encouraging Elon college students to toss their bottles into recycling bins. Taking inspiration from open-source designs, Satko devised the Campus Aware PET-cycler system: a prototype that cuts and melts polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles into into filament, paired with an app that incentivizes recycling by turning these bottles into reward factors college students can redeem on campus. The method reuses about 90% of the bottle, leaving solely the bottom and screwtop.
“PET plastic is likely one of the finest for 3D printing as a result of it’s robust and has excessive heat-resistance,” Satko mentioned. “I didn’t invent this course of, however I upgraded among the designs in my prototype, and the app provides a dimension that connects it with college students.”
The Elon Innovation Problem is an annual competitors sponsored by the Doherty Heart for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship that permits college students to determine and work by means of revolutionary options for a particular drawback. This 12 months’s problem joined with the Campus Race to Zero Waste initiative, a nationwide competitors to encourage school campuses to hunt methods to get rid of trash.
Satko’s Campus Aware initiative bested about 25 different entries, which included methods to cut back waste in eating halls, improve composting, repurpose objects and lift consciousness of environmental points.
“I hate seeing trash all over the place, and I attempt to do my share of cleansing up once I see it. I’ve at all times felt that method, and it’s why I wished to take part within the problem this 12 months,” Satko mentioned. “The Innovation Problem is likely one of the finest issues about my school expertise up to now. I participated final 12 months and it’s only a good thing. I’m grateful to (Doherty Heart Director) Alyssa Martina and the Doherty Heart for providing this problem.”
Satko’s grand prize included $2,500. He’s already invested a few of these winnings into his eBay enterprise refurbishing computer systems. He buys computer systems auctioned off by colleges and universities and spends his weekends at dwelling repairing and reselling them. The prize cash afforded him new pc restore instruments, and he’s trying ahead to placing into use the information he continues to achieve in pc science programs.
Sooner or later, Satko hopes to parlay his pc science diploma into invention and entrepreneurship.
“I wish to have an enormous thought and nice invention sooner or later. I feel that will be nice.”
So, he’s maintaining that pocket book useful, prepared for inspiration to strike.
