Trash Compactor

When I entered the Think Outside the Box challenge, I started watching videos made by astronauts on the ISS. I noticed they made a lot of trash, like towels, razor blades, and food packages. They use a capsule to burn the garbage as it enters the atmosphere, which means using space equipment to throw garbage away. I thought that if trash took up less space, the ISS would not have to be rid of trash as often. That would save a lot of time and money. With those thoughts in mind, I made a tool for the astronauts: a hand-held trash compactor. The compactor works by inserting the trash and pushing the red plunger into the orange base,forming the material into a small, round disk. But, if more room for trash is needed, ta-da! It extends to reveal a yellow tube just by twisting! So that the plunger doesn’t float away, there is a locking tool on the plunger, activated by twisting the blue piece into the yellow clip.

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