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Trash Talk
The average American creates four pounds of trash everyday! Addressing the current dilemma that America is running out of landfill space, finalists were challenged to use scientific equipment and techniques to accurately measure volumes, masses, and densities of typical refuse and then use a 40-ton hydraulic press to compact as much as possible into a one cubic foot box. Finally, teams wrote a museum-quality label for this display piece.
Team Blue sorts through bags of garbage to measure volume, mass, and density before moving on to compacting. From left: Host Josh Ruder, Connor Ivens, host David Clark, Danielle Zapata, judge Mark Oleksak, Matthew Nanni, Erik Gustafson, and Collen Cambier. low res - high res
Team Blue is wowed by the power a 40-ton hydraulic press had on a quarter placed on a plank of wood. low res - high res
Finalists work together to compact as much trash as possible into a one-foot cubic box. low res - high res
Team Green work together to collect trash so that they can compare its density against compacted trash. low res - high res
Team Green (from left: Evan Cofer, Matthew Lepow, Amy Tang, Prithwis Mukhopadhyay, and John Douglas Haswell) determines how they will calculate the density, mass and volume of the trash they collected. low res - high res
