CashCan

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Inspiration

We wanted to motivate people to recycle more and to help prevent littering.

What it does

The CashCan pairs to a user's phone and will detect when objects are disposed in it. It will reward the user with points that they can either cash out for rewards or compete with other users on an interactive social platform.

How we built it

We built microcontrollers that sense movement to detect if objects have been disposed in the trashcan. The microcontrollers were placed in the trashcan and will sense movement for disposal and will also sense if it is full. The sensor connects to the user's phone through an application and, upon verification of the disposal, will reward the user with points on the social platform. The microcontrollers were placed in the trashcan and will sense movement for disposal and will also sense if it is full.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into problems during Android development and pairing between the microcontrollers and phone. We resolved this quickly and were able to connect the two successfully. We started developing the web application for the social platform but ran into issues in recording unique user data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were successfully able to detect when trash is disposed of and are able to display verification through the app.

What we learned

We learned that a complex idea can be solved using simple implementations.

What's next for CashCan

We are planning to improve the social platform and make the rewards system more interesting for users to be motivated to use it. Also we wish to give amount of points based on the product disposed of.

Built With

• android-studio
• arduino
• bluetooth
• imu
• photoshop
• python
• trashcan
• wordpress