Obnoxious Scheme to Convince All to Recycle (OSCAR)

Our trash can revolutionizes waste disposal by verbally assaulting ignorant fools who DARE dispose of their waste in the incorrect bin.

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Inspiration

We love trash talking. Don't get me wrong, we don't condone gossip in our house. But did you hear about that guy the other week who threw trash in the recycling bin? I know! Crazy right? Some people...

What it does

We have three (3) bins: compost, recycling, and trash. A voice-over is played to indicate where the user should place their trash (randomized). Sensors over each bin detect which bin an object is placed in. If the user places the trash in the correct bin, the audio plays a pleasant message. If placed in the incorrect bin, they will be scolded. Tsk, tsk.

How we built it

We used a raspberry pi to handle the motion sensors and the audio. The bins themselves we forged in the fires of Mount Doom. We used a zoom mic to record the audio and audacity to edit it.

Challenges we ran into

The Arduino 101 didn't work, so we threw it in the trash. The Arduino Uno didn't have audio so we threw it in the recycling bin. The Google Home didn't have an easy way to play audio despite being a smart SPEAKER so we put it in the compost bin.

Everything was incredibly easy because we are all geniuses. The most difficult part of this project was tweeting out our logo as a submission for the color war contest. Twitter makes me bitter.

Originally we planned to use an IBM Watson cloud service to distinguish the type of garbage. But it turns out garbage can't detect itself. Though we got the app to "work", we couldn't figure out how to get it to sort the recognized objects into categories. In addition, the app does not really seem to identify things in an... appropriate manner.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • The Voice -- it sounds both passive, and aggressive. It's a new thing I like to call aggressive-passive.
  • The Tweet -- We finally tweeted the thing. I can do technology yaaaaaaaaay.
  • The Drawing -- An Oscar-winning drawing of an oscar with oscar's head (see attached)
  • The Flower
  • The Intrigue
  • The Dismay
  • The Elaborate Joke Taken Too Far -- this

What we learned

  • I learned Swift swiftly
  • How to tweet
  • Some Python
  • What a backend API is
  • Apple is super finicky about developer accounts
  • Large companies are not always competent (not saying any names (cough IBM); we don't condone gossip here)
  • It's better to write something yourself than to use something pre-made that doesn't work
  • How to draw (See attached; please hire me Im basically an expert now)
  • YOU CAN FRICKEN DRAG A FILE INTO A TERMINAL AND IT COPIES THE PATH!!! AWESOME!!!! (thanks python mentor dude Johnnnnn!)

What's next for Obnoxious Scheme to Convince All to Recycle

We NEED to win an oscar.

Built With

  • audacity
  • box-cutter
  • breadboard
  • cardboard
  • construction-paper
  • hairtie
  • headphones
  • ibm-watson
  • ios
  • krita
  • line-break-sensor
  • love
  • markers
  • pipecleaners
  • python
  • raspberry-pi
  • speaker
  • superfight
  • swift
  • tape
  • ulstrasonic-sensor
  • wires
  • zoom-microphone
+ 86 more
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