Robot art is born from electronics waste in a recycling workshop

Описание: Did you know that every year the world produces 57.4 million tons of waste from electronics alone? That’s more than the combined weight of the entire Great Wall of China. One artist is doing her bit to reduce that mountain of waste in a creative way. Chan Ling-chun’s robot decorations are made of scrap electronics - a reminder that beauty can come out of a broken object.

A robot band plays jazz rock, one singer and one bass player. Both were made from recycled capacitors.

Chan Ling-chun
Robot decoration maker
I gradually researched all the functions of the components. The capacitors have always been different colors so their operators can distinguish them. Because I just make people-shaped designs, my robots need clothes to wear, so I could use those colors to make each them. All the clothes are different.

There are robots racing, sumo wrestling and swimming. There’s even a Taipei 101. It’s all made from discarded electronics.

Chan Ling-chun
Robot decoration maker
Their bodies are made from IC chips, resistors, and mini capacitors. These ones are mainly made from the “on-off” button. This one has a body made of a capacitor.

First Chan chooses which components of the discarded motherboards she’ll use. She removes the outer layer one by one with pliers. Then she polishes it down, drills holes, and stitches the components together with copper wire, before screwing the robot to a little copper stand and adding a hat made from an electric filter gauze. And just like that, potential waste has become a unique and heart-warming little piece of art.

Chan Ling-chun
Robot decoration maker
Taiwan is the kingdom of electronics. But actually we discard so much stuff every year. When our computer breaks, we can change one of its parts ourselves. We think that, when we first opened it up, the computer board looked like a city. So I use scrap computer parts to make various little people.

Statistics show the world’s overall haul of waste electronics was a whopping 57.4 million tons in 2021. This artist is determined to do her bit to stem the tide.

Chan Ling-chun
Robot decoration maker
The yellow parts on a circuit board are all real gold. They can be taken off and reused. And the copper sheets and wires too. Because the capacitors are scrap, they don’t have any reuse value. Also they break easily, and they contain the most scrap materials, so we want to give them a new life.

This workshop is saving electrics from the scrap heap, giving precious metals a new function, and producing adorable decorations to tickle the fancy of every tech fan.