EcoThrow

Welcome to EcoThrow! Let's make our planet a little greener.
You can add a picture of what you want to dispose of through camera or photo gallery.
Our app figures out what the waste is and the proper way to dispose of it, then adds it to your log.
You can keep track of your past waste disposal through the log.

Inspiration

Among the three of us, we believe that personal action can contribute to making the planet a little greener. From campaigning for and introducing a compost system to our high school to using reusable bags for groceries, we've always tried our best to be environmentally conscious. We thought about this idea because we often run into problems of not knowing what certain items are classified as, and even when we're standing in front of three types of waste bins, we still didn't know where to throw the waste. This app is quick, real time, and adds a sense of personal achievement to helping the environment.

What it does

EcoThrow allows you to track your environmental impact and obtain information on how to dispose of things you throw away. To do so, simply take a picture of the object you want to toss, and our app will use Google Cloud Vision to identify it and suggest the correct way to dispose of it. Once you sort your item the correct way, EcoThrow will log the achievement and update your personal ecoScore, calculated by the frequency of your accurate disposal.

How I built it

We used React Native as our programming language. We also used Google Cloud Vision for image identification. For the logo design, we used Figma. We used Expo to test our app.

Challenges I ran into

We had some problems with getting software to work across all 3 computers, so sometimes the three of us would have to use one computer to do the actual coding parts. Expo connection was also unpredictable sometimes - we'd be making changes in Webstorm and it would not appear in the test app, even though it had worked just a second ago. That really slowed us down in terms of getting to creating as many of the features as we wanted, as it was difficult to debug designs without seeing them. None of us had used React Native before, so this was definitely a fun and interesting experience.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The proudest accomplishment would probably be the idea of the app, as even though there are more features that we have yet to implement, it is one step closer to helping the public become more aware of their environmental impact. We're also proud of getting Google Cloud Vision to implement well in our app!

What I learned

We learned that no matter how many languages we know collectively, getting exposed and used to new software is always a challenge. But we also learned to adapt - when we ran into problems with software that seemed to be glitching, we would move onto another part and continue working just so we wouldn't fall behind too much. Coding can be entertaining and fun as a group effort - having so many brains work together made the process faster, as there were three pairs of eyes on one code to catch mistakes. That being said, people's coding styles really are different, and we now understand why most companies require a uniform coding style.

What's next for EcoThrow

In the future, we'd like to implement a feature that shows the user how other people are doing with their ecoScores as a way to motivate each other to play their part in building a greener planet. We'd also like to help users find the nearest recycle centers near them for certain types of waste like batteries, Styrofoam, and others that cannot be recycled the traditional way.