Bamboolets

Inspiration

As a group, we consider ourselves to be activists who care about the environment we live in. When we knew that we were limited in terms of topics for this competition, all of us immediately agreed on focusing on something that helps the environment. Once the idea is set, everything just flows on its own. Based on our previous knowledge we knew how harmful lead bullets are, thus the research on biodegradable materials that are hard enough to be a bullet began. When our research and solution, Bamboolets, to the problem is found, we chose to apply it to the competition by making a website that teaches people about all the issues and benefits of this project. We’ve decided to enforce the correct knowledge of Bamboolets using an app, which also corresponds to the Hackathon because it is purposely made interactive for users to practice their knowledge on Bamboolets.

What it does

Our website and app offers the knowledge of environmentally friendly material, bamboo, and how we can utilize it to eliminate many of the severe world environmental and health issues that bullets cause. With the use of billions of ammunition every year, Moso bamboo can be effectively used to lessen hazardous materials left in the soil. Bamboo, in general, is known for being the fastest growing plant in the world and has a greater tensile strength than steel. By utilizing a cartridge that's both reasonably priced and functional, it allows the transition towards a healthy Earth to become easier, without affecting the daily lives of the people.

How we built it

After we agreed on focusing on environmental problems in the world, we chose to research on biodegradable materials to replace lead bullets. When we were sure we had the correct information, we used the templates on wix.com to help us make the informative website on the environmental and health issues on lead bullets. After the website was done, we thought an APP would add more fun to the supposedly boring environmental issue and thus increase outside interests in our project.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge we ran into is coming up with an idea that fits with our goal of helping the environment. We knew that biodegradable materials are a big topic but it was hard to really come up with something to start with. After doing an hour of brainstorming, we’ve decided lead bullets are something to eliminate. After we got our hands dirty with research, there were just small but tedious technical problems we ran into while creating the website and the app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We all agree that the biggest part of this competition we are proud of is that we came up with an idea that can actually be used and put into mass production to help the environment. However, creating a website that informs people about the harms of lead bullet and benefits of using bamboo as replacement is also something we thought was really helpful in terms of educating people on this not-so-widely-known issue.

What we learned

As a group, we learned how lead bullets can cause detrimental impacts to the environment and our health. To solve these issues, we also figured out the process to make bullets out of bamboo.

What's next for Bamboolets

Since this is an idea that can actually help the environment if it is put into use, we hope that there will be investors who see the potential in this project and put this product into production. Although we don’t know how possible that is, we have our hopes up because as mentioned earlier, we consider ourselves activists that actually want to help the environment.