A New Life for Laptops

Is a laptop computer useless without a hard drive? A group of University of Illinois students decided to find out. With funding provided by Dell and a grant from the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), a division of the Prairie Research Institute on the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus, the students worked in conjunction with university researchers and explored reuse options for such devices destined for recycling. The four ideas developed from this project include: LCD Screen Lights; Egg Production; Auto Drip Irrigation & Sea of Sensors; Laptop Express; and Education & Training.Ope