Open Ended Investigation
Aim: My aim was to design and create a working bird feeder out of recyclable materials and homemade glue. I wanted to promote a lifestyle where we as a society are able to reuse the waste we create and ignite a culture where we are constantly using recycled plastics to make everyday items. I also wanted to simultaneously create an attraction for natural pollinators to help our gardens grow.
Hypothesis: I hypothesise that my bird feeder will in fact attract birds due to the fact that I have created a model which identically resembles the structure of a regular bird feeder. I have found cost effective, sturdy, recycled materials that will certainly be able to hold birds and bird feed sustainably and for a long period of time due to its durability and weather resistance.
Prediction: I predict that the bird feeder will be hard to maintain upright in high wind zones despite its weather resistance. I think that the materials used might not be attractive to natural wildlife and thus making it harder to maintain a mini bird attraction. The bird seed combined with the feeding holes and stick in my opinion will be perfect at maintaining a successful bird feeder. I also think the glue might not be sturdy enough but regardless it is not the most important part.
Equipment:
Bird Feeder
- 40 – 50cm long stick
- Bird feed
- Plastic jar (9cm wide & 22cm tall)
- Homemade glue
- Drill with 5cm diameter
- Knife sharpener or hot metal rod
- Fire stove
- Homemade Glue
- 3 tablespoons of flour
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- Hot and cold water
- 1 cup
- 1 spoon
- A bowl
Method:
Bird Feeder:
- Place knife sharpener or metal rod on a flame stove and let it sit for 10 minutes.
- 5cm above the base of the jar insert your rod to make a hole roughly 1cm in diameter. Do a second one horizontally opposite to your first hole.
- Insert your stick into the hole while still warm to create a tight fit.
- 4cm above those holes drill a 5cm diameter hol using the Design and Technology lab equipment. Do this 4cm above your original holes. Do a second hole horizontally opposite the first large hole.
- Fill bird feeder with bird feed until just below your large holes.
- Rest in garden
Homemade Glue
- Pour 3 tablespoons of water in a cup
- Add the flour slowly, stirring in between
- Place the cup with the mixture in a bowl filled with hot water.
- Put the sugar in and stir.
- Put the salt in and stir.
- Keep stirring until the consistency is slightly runny
- Put the glue mixture in a closed container and shake hard.
Discussion
In my hypothesis I deducted that my bird feeder would successfully attract birds, I was correct. I was infact able to attract some birds to my garden and also to feed from my bird feeder. I think this is due to the simplicity of my design and how much it resembles a working product. I also said that my model would be durable and weather resistant. This also ended up being correct due to its ability to survive the rain fall on the night of August 24th. Which was said to be a month’s worth of rain to fall in 1 night. It is still up and running, working in my backyard through this weather thanks to the sturdiness of the materials and design. I thought this would be correct since I had seen the same materials used in other environmental projects built for the outdoors like a greenhouse made of recycled plastic bottles and since my garden wire is built for the outdoors. I predicted the glue might not be sturdy enough to hold 2 plastics together and i was correct yet again. The glue i made would have been perfect for paper but did end up breaking down a tiny bit on my model. Although my glue wasn’t as good as it should be it didn’t cause too much harm since my project wasn’t heavily reliant on the glue and held its own due to the wires tight fit in the hole.
The two major issues i encountered was the homemade glue and how I cut the hole.
The homemade glue wasn’t nearly as sturdy enough as I thought it could be as i mentioned before. This is because i used ingredients for a cake instead of specific chemicals. In the future I should probably invest some more time into researching a way to make adhesive durable glue that I could use. This probably would have made my model a lot cleaner and efficient. This issue was not detrimental to the project as it still worked.
The way I cut the holes was an issue because using scissors and knives to cut a perfectly circular hole is very inefficient and has proven to come out with sharp edges that have points sticking out. As much as I tried to remove these sharp spikes there were still some left behind. This is an issue for the safety of the wildlife that stick their heads through the hole because they could get their necks or heads caught on one of the spikes which could cut them or even kill them. In the future I could use a 5cm diameter drill head from the design & technology lab to drill a smoother, cleaner hole and then further sand it down with wet and dry paper made for plastics. Although no animals were harmed with my model, they could have been harmed in the future which is why I am discussing this as an issue.