MEMS 411: Gentle Washing Machine for RECLEM Clothing

For our senior design project we worked with Dr. Mary Ruppert-Stroescu, Associate Professor at the Sam Fox School, and her company RECLEM to create a sustainable method for washing her clothing creations. RECLEM re-purposes old clothing scraps for sustainable garment manufacturing. RECLEM is experiencing a problem of deformation of her clothing when the pieces are go through a washing machine cycle. After completing our customer interview, we realized the root cause of the problem was the aggressive environment created by the washing machine. To combat this, we created a new washing process that is both scalable and gentle. Our design goals were centered around scalability and sustainability while still making sure the garments could be properly washed. The goals are as follows: the device processes fabric with a throughput of > 360in2 /hr, the device processes fabric using < 17.5 gallons of water per cycle, and finally after processing, rectangular pieces of fabric show a change in side length of < 2%of their original length. We created a device that includes: a frame to hold the garments, a basin that hold the water, a pump that circulates the water, a hose to move the water from the pump onto the garment, a nozzle to spread the water, and a PVC pipe assemble to direct the hose. Our device incudes a lid to minimize splashing and handles to increase ease of use. Our device passed all three of our initial design goals. This will help Dr. Ruppert-Stroescu prove to her investors that RECLEM is a scalable idea and her clothes can be manufactured properly.