Inspiration
One issue that we come across daily is confusion between what types of waste should go into recycling, compost, and trash bins. Usually when people are throwing away waste, it's a decision they make in a split second, and they may not necessarily have time to think about which components of their food waste goes into each bin.
75% of Americans recycle but only 9% of items are properly recycled. Only 28% of Americans actually compost.
The best solution for this issue is to educate Americans, especially children, on proper waste management practices to help them sustain a cleaner world.
What it does
The game allows players to click through scenes with information on the importance of proper waste sorting. The game allows the player to choose between 3 different modes (recycling bin, trash bin, and compost bin), where their goal is to only capture the right type of waste in their basket. They will be deducted points if they select the wrong waste. The goal of the game is to commit to memory what waste is sorted in each basket, which allows the player to internalize best waste sorting practices for real world application.
The fast-paced nature of the game conditions the player to quickly understand how to properly sort waste into different categories, simulating how, in the real world, we instantly recognize which of our waste is trash and recycling. We want to similarly help the composting process become second-nature for kids and people around the world.
How we built it
We built this using Java in the Processing graphical library and IDE. We modularized several files to run our program, each of which represents a class or page.
Challenges we ran into
Given that we're beginners, we had to understand the concepts behind object-oriented programming, such as creating classes for objects. A few of our roadblocks involved animating our objects and creating code that would identify which waste items were sorted into recycling, compost, or trash and having the respective bins recognize these items upon colliding with the items.
Accomplishments that we're proud of and what we learned
As beginners, we're proud of the fact that we were able to successfully combat our roadblocks to create a fully-functioning and exciting game that can help others ignite change.
Going into this challenge, we weren't completely sure which types of waste were sorted into their respective bins, as like many individuals, this is a problem we also face. Through this project, we gained a stronger understanding of how we can take simple actions to create a cleaner, more sustainable world. And we're proud of creating a fun tool that lets other young citizens of the world join us on our mission.
What's next for Cloudy with a Chance of Cleanup:
We think it would be really exciting to share our game with local elementary/middle schools, camps, and daycares to better educate kids in College Park about proper waste sorting at a young age, helping them taking small steps to create a cleaner world.
We would additionally like to add a leadership board feature, and have friends post their scores on social media accounts (such as Facebook), so they can compare their scores with friends. This will promote healthy competition and more frequent use of the game, which will lead to us achieving our goal of users memorizing proper waste sorting practices.
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