For his graduate show at the Royal College of Art, Thomas Thwaites decided to build a toaster from scratch.

The project involved digging up the raw materials from abandoned mines around the UK, processing them at home, and forming them into a product.

The project turned out to be quite challenging and at the end of the process, Thomas Thwaites had spend 9 months and £ 1187.54 on an imperfect product, which he could have bought fully functional for just £ 3.94.

The Toaster Project was exhibited and awarded an honorary mention at this year's Ars Electronica Festival.

Videos documenting the hilariously absurd process are available at the project site.

• www.thetoasterproject.org