Tom, an Arts et Métiers student, is one of the creators of Sharp!

Did you create this object by yourself?

No, there are two of us. I work with Louis Barbe, a third-year student at Télécom Paris. We have been making and tinkering with objects together for seven years now. We met in prep school!

How did you come up with the idea for a knife sharpener?

We are part of Precious Plastic*, a global plastic recycling project. As part of this, a few years ago we manufactured machines to recycle plastic, including a shredder, an extruder, and an injection molding machine. We therefore had everything we needed to transform waste into valuable objects, as well as the desire to carry out a project on a different scale from those we usually undertake.
When I first had the idea for a knife sharpener, I started by printing it in 3D. 

*Precious Plastic: PJT (2nd-year student project as part of the Grande Ecole Program) since 2018, which is repeated every year - Mold manufacturing and study of thermoplastics for plastic injection molding.

The project was completed very quickly. What were the different stages involved? 

In fact, it took only two months in total. The longest part was prototyping, but also perfecting the manufacturing process.

Why did you call this project Sharp? 

We called it "Sharp," which in English means sharp. The A is represented by the symbol for HDPE (high-density polyethylene), which is actually a way of identifying the plastic so that it can be recycled at the end of its life!

How does your training at Arts et Métiers with this project?

The excellence of the training really enabled me to develop my organizational skills and move forward with this project. What's more, the technical courses, including those in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) at the Châlons-en-Champagne campus, greatly helped me to create the sharpener's machining program.