Industrial - Bachelors
The Compost Frog is an in classroom Educational intervention designed by Edward Murray. Consisting of a boldly characterised electronic composting unit delivered alongside an illustrated children's storybook, students are introduced to the character of The Compost Frog and guided through the processes of composting food waste in an engaging and entertaining format.
The Compost Frog is a Design solution by Edward Murray with the aim of leveraging design, technology, and storytelling to engage Children in sustainable education.
The developing brain has an innate capability to engage deeply with storytelling. Children are able to effectively internalize and synthesize complex topics delivered in a narrative structure. The stories we hear as children fundamentally shape our learned behaviours and attitudes as adults.
Children often hold much more positive attitudes towards content learned in video games than they do towards school learning .
Nand, K., Baghaei, N., Casey, J., Barmada, B., Mehdipour, F., Liang, H.-N. (2019)
The Compost frog is an in classroom, educational, intervention comprising of a electronic composting system (Capacity, 9L) charmingly designed to engage students interest and imaginations, delivered alongside an educational program, and illustrated story book.
The Compost Frog educational program guides students through the entire composting process from collecting scraps to using the processed compost to grow their own wild flowers. This gives students a valuable opportunity to contextualize waste, by observing the transformation of their own food scraps into a viable resource first hand.
A full scale aesthetic model of the device was manufacture using 3d printed PLA components and formed acrylic sheet. The design and fabrication process is shown in the following slideshow.
We all have fond memories of the stories we were told as children, many of those we heard in a classroom setting. There is no doubting the vast cultural significance that storytelling has within australian children’s education. The compost frog illustrated storybook leverages storytelling and whimsical characterisation in order to deliver a complex message sustainability and urban regeneration in an engaging format for school children which doesn’t feel like learning.
Edward is a Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering graduate with a background in manufacturing. With his bright use of form and colour Edward believes in using design to spread joy and encourage. sustainability.