Abstract:
Ocean pollution is a very real and very visible problem in our world, the result of a century reliant on plastics. One of the most visible symbols of this casual destruction of the environment is the flip-flop; cheap, nonbiodegradable, and unsustainable, they litter beaches from Manhattan to Madagascar. A Better Flip-Flop details my mission to create an entirely sustainable and biodegradable flip-flop. My design, through an iterative prototyping process, takes advantage of modern rapid prototyping techniques in an attempt to create a new functional, beautiful, and environmentally responsible flipflop.
This paper documents the research, materials, and processes I used to create a unique pair of footwear which accomplish this goal while also recording the problems I faced and lessons I learned, concluding with a discussion of the future of this project.
