AMHERST — An inexpensive way to turn disposable forks, knives and spoons used in the school cafeteria and other recycled plastics into filament for the school’s three-dimensional printer is the purpose of a prototype machine being built by Amherst Regional High School students.

For another group of students, future construction of a gazebo on the school’s front courtyard would recreate a positive, outdoor community gathering space for students, faculty and staff, in the vicinity of where deteriorating benches were removed several years ago.

Both projects are the results of the semester-long Engineering for Social Good, an advanced engineering class where students attempt to find engineering-oriented solutions to problems they have identified at school.

Some of the students, who are continuing to work on the ideas even as the class ended earlier in the year, made brief pitches to the Amherst Regional School Committee and Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman earlier this month.

Caesar Marcus and Alexander Marlin, both juniors at the school, showed how their team built a prototype shredder for filament recycling, a tool in which small bits of plastic are placed into a hopper and then pushed through a pipe heated to almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit, yielding strands of filament.

This extruder and shredder filament recycling device, they said, can cut down on waste, both from the filament scraps processed through the 3-D printer that would otherwise be disposed, and from the composting of the utensils.

“Each year 40 billion plastic forks, spoons and knives are thrown away,” Marcus said. “These utensils could be easily repurposed into 3-D printer filament. We believe our system has the potential to do this.”

But the students acknowledged this will not be cheap because of the challenges of refining the plastics. Marlin explained that top-of-the-line, at-home solutions can cost $20,000, and even low end solutions can cost $3,100, with a final product that is inferior to new filament.

“It’s not a very well-researched topic,” Marlin said.

Gazebo pitch

For Elizabeth MacLeod, a senior, and Liam Worgess, a junior, the group they were part of is trying to bring back a community space that was on the front lawn of the school, near where buses pick up and drop off students.

“It’s not surprising that people miss this, because community spaces are incredibly important, especially for high schools,” MacLeod said.

The group created an image board and then did interviews with those at the school, finding there is a clear preference for lots of seating and to have a roof structure. The group fabricated the seating that could be used and did renderings, architectural plans and schematics of a finished product, mocking up gazebos and even using a scale model, Worgess said.

Completing its third year, the Engineering for Social Good is a class taught by John Fabel, who said students will see projects through to implementation where they can have an actual impact on the school, and perhaps beyond.

“What’s it like to do the real work, to feel that agency?” Fabel said.

Fabel said students in previous years have done similar projects. Last year, a group wanted to find a way to make the windows at the high school more energy efficient. This led to students building a “blower door,” along with a manual, so that staff can do energy analysis of the building.

Both groups intend to continue working on their projects, with the school’s flex blocks being available as a place to build the filament recycler, and the Social Good Club, with 40 members, advocating for the community space.

The students appreciated the response from the school committee and Herman.

Marlin called the feedback from members “very positive” and Marcus said he was impressed that committee members saw the need for filament recycling. “They seemed to really understand what we’re saying,” Marcus said.

MacLeod offered her appreciation that Herman is willing to meet and coordinate with the school’s facilities team to bring the full gazebo to reality, and the need to get a building permit, though she graduates before it will be in place.

“It was great to hear them be so encouraging,” Worgess said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.