Rapid prototyping saves ancient Chinese instruments

Meet Mattilda, the first purpose-built machine in the UK to reduce the huge number of mattresses being sent to landfill. Designed to be ten times faster than manual cleaning and connected to the web for remote monitoring. Mattresses are first manually inspected and pre-cleaned with environmentally-friendly detergent, then receive an intensive deep-clean with Steam, Vacuum, Ozone, UVc and 60 degrees of heat to dry them thoroughly. Bulky Bob’s was created in 2000 by FRC Group , a Liverpool social enterprise and charity. Bulky Bob’s has held the bulky household waste collection service with Liverpool City Council since its creation and also delivers collection services for Oldham and Warrington councils. Two years ago I was approached to develop a machine for automating the cleaning of used mattresses so that they could be put back into use. Bulky Bob's had already tried doing this manually and could clean one mattress in about 60 minutes, selling the refurbished mattresses through their retail store. The slowest parts of the process involved Ultra-Violet exposure and drying. After a process of capturing the requirements from all stakeholders - operator, supply-chain, installation, client - we proposed several visual concepts of the possible solutions. I assisted the client in applying for support under the Made Smarter grant programme and we moved into the design phase. It was important to keep the design to a modular architecture with a certain amount of independence between the key elements. This would help an incremental build and to facilitate modifications to optimise performance in a real-world situation. A standard conveyor system was proposed with a number of enclosures designed for safe access and containment. We commissioned an Ultra Violet system and obtained an Ozone generator. The Steam Box is driven by an Steam Generator and a vacuum unit. Combined with manual pre-cleaning the machine has greatly increased the speed of mattress cleaning and increased consistency. More machines are to be built and will have a significant impact on reducing our carbon footprint and the amount of bulky materials being sent to landfill. Click here to see a video of the machine.