My vision for my time capsule project was to think of the technology we have used till this day and age and imagine what people 125 years from now will think of these items

From designers such as Victor Papanek and Don Norman, we are all starting to realize that we have created an abundance of gadgets and junk using rare metals that we cannot replenish: cobalt, lithium, indium, gallium, selenium and zirconium. "Rare-earth elements (REEs) are used as components in high technology devices, including smart phones, digital cameras,, flat screen televisions, computer monitors, and electronic displays. Large quantities of some REEs are used in clean energy and defense technologies." We generate around 40 million tons of electronic waste every year, worldwide. That's like throwing 800 laptops every second. 

For my time capsule, I chose items around my house that I am curious to know what people 125 years from now will think of when they see the

 I wanted to showcase tech gadgets that were once so important to live your daily life, and are now viewed as garbage. If I am viewing these items as useless now I image people uncovering these items 125 years from now having no clue what purpose these items were used for and seeing how much waste we produced during our life time. 

The first item is a photo of my mom from the 1980’s. In the past 100 years, photography and the quality of images have changed so much. She later met my father and got married and they had 3 kids of mixed race: Italian and Pakistani. During this time, they received a lot of criticism for being an interracial couple. In 125 years, I imagine people looking at these images being shocked by the quality as I image images being captured and viewed in a much more advanced way but seeing an interracial couple as very normal, especially in that century. 

I chose to laser cut birch wood into an Apple computer to use as my vessel. I chose a laptop because many of the same metals that are used in the items I chose to go inside my time capsule are also used in laptops. These laptops have our whole life in them, and I wanted people 125 years from now to look at the outside of my vessel and envision my life being in there. Every few years, we tend to discard our old laptops and buy completely new ones. All these years, we have not created a way for people to upgrade a laptop by replacing pieces inside. Instead, we junk it, increasing landfill and continuing to feed into the industry and buying new ones.

I chose to make my laptop out of birch wood as a statement as to why we have not considered making more eco-friendly laptops, perhaps out of wood to put a curb to e-waste earth, using damaging materials, and the toxic chemicals used in mainstream technology. I wonder if 125 years from now, will we have laptops? I am unsure on what the future of electronics and gadgets will look like but I am certain that materials such as wood will continue to be used then as we have been using them for years. Out of everything that people will likely be unfamiliar with when they open the vessel, at least they will understand the material used as the shell of the vessel.

I drew some cartoons envisioning what people 125 years from now will think of when they uncover my time capsule

1. The first image is the girl holding the iPod and looking at a bunch of cables. She is confused as to what the iPod is used for as she has never seen anything like this. She thinks that maybe it is a toy for kids to play with but can never imagine it actually being powered up and serving the purpose to allow people to listen to their favorite tunes back in the day. She is also shocked by how many cables there are with all different types of plugs. She is asking what they are used for and notices how wasteful they are. She is confused as in 2147, they no longer use wires to charge anything.

2. The next cartoon is a boy looking at a sim card. He has no idea what it was used for and is shocked to find out that this was once how we were able to get our cell phones working to call others. When asked what he thinks it is, he thought it was a chip that we place inside our brains! This might very well be the case as a new form of communication without mobile phones in 2147.

3. The next drawing is a comparison of what planes look like now versus what I envision them looking like 125 years from now. Planes contribute greatly to climate change as they are heaving CO2 emitters. After some research, I found that the airplane industry is looking into different materials, different ways to fuel the plane, and even different shapes to make more efficient planes in the future. The Wright brothers flew their first plane in 1903 which now looks drastically different than the planes we have now and view as high-tech. I believe a person uncovering my box and seeing the plane souvenir will view it as ancient as their planes will look more like the V shape one I drew or similar.

4. The next thing I drew is a CD. People in 2147 will have absolutely no clue what they are and how popular they were for audio and downloading. I believe they might see it as something for kids or animals to play with rather then downloading things on them and using them as a form of entertainment