Copper Adinkra from E-Waste

Recycle materials to create something new

Electronic waste is a growing environmental threat. We can recycle materials by melting them, but that takes energy, which creates more pollution. Upcycling waste--reusing what is already there with repair or reinvention--is a much better approach. It replaces big carbon footprints--tearing down ecosystems for copper mines, fueling big equipment and smelters, transporting the metal for turning into wire, shipping the wire, etc. It does that with a nearly carbon-zero source: our human creativity.

We will start with the example of extracting copper from house wiring, and bending it into adinkra symbol shapes for use as fidget spinners, pendants or other jewelry.

Safety first!

  1. Wear safety goggles or glasses when working with tools. Hammer, soldering iron, drill -- any tool can blind you with sputtering hot metal or tiny spurs. Certain tools (welding, plasma cutter, laser) have special goggles, not ordinary safety goggles.
  2. Never cut towards yourself. When drilling, sawing, etc. clamp down your work.
  3. No open-toed shoes, and nothing dangling that will get caught in tools (tie your hair back and remove necklaces, neckties, hoodie strings, etc.).
  4. Clean up after yourself! The majority of workplace accidents are from clutter.

Removing individual wires from the sheath

This is called “NM cable” (because the outer part is “non-metallic”). There are three wires inside the sheath. This exterior sheath is color coded: white for 14-gauge, yellow for 12-gauge, orange for 10-gauge. The wires inside have one bare copper (for ground) and two for the current.

You can use the ground wire (bare copper wire at center in the image) to tear out the outer cable. If you need additional wire, you can get it by stripping the insulation off the two interior wires. There are several possible methods, this video reviews them all:

Creating the dwennimmen (“JEN-ah-men”) symbol with copper wire

A good one to start with is dwennimmen, the ram’s horn (https://csdt.org/culture/adinkra/spirals.html). Its easy to make, nicely connects to the log spiral forms in nature (ram’s horns), and it's saying “it is the heart and not the horns that makes the ram a bully” (meaning “take responsibility for your actions”) is great for kids to think about.

A: Start with a copper wire about 6 inches long. Fold the copper in half, like an old-fashioned hair pin.
B: Then coil the ends. Use the round nose pliers to start:
C: The little ends don't like to bend! So you snip those off.
D: Keep rolling the spiral with the round-nose pliers.
E: Switch to the flat pliers when the spiral is too big for the round-nose.
F: At this point you should have half your dwennimmen finished. Now follow the same steps to create the other half. Here is a video of the whole process:
G: Fitting the bearing races: At first there will not be a good fit for your bearing races. So you can now spread the spirals apart to get your bearing races to fit snugly inside. Uncoiling them a bit helps, and that will also give you more of a log spiral look. Here is a video:
H: And now it's time to join the two. The easy way to do this is to crazy glue. The challenging way to do it is with soldering. It is surprisingly easy to accidentally add glue to the bearing race and destroy it, or add heat and melt it. So remove the bearing race first. Use tape or thumbtacks or weights to keep the wire from moving around.
I: And finally you can glue in the bearing race and add the caps. Again, here is a video: