ReProcess

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  Prototype screens

Inspiration

Once while taking a walk, we noticed the overflowing dumpsters in our neighborhood. Turns out it's not just a local issue - 95% of waste in Ukraine is not recycled and ends up in landfills. We realized that the lack of knowledge about proper waste disposal is a major problem. That's why we created ReProcess, an app that not only educates users about sustainable practices but also incentivizes them through gamification. With ReProcess, we can make a real impact on our community and the environment.

What it does

Our app consolidates information about donation, repair, and recycling locations in the neighborhood. It provides details about the types of items accepted and their respective drop-off points. Users can select the action they want to take with their items and access information about rules and restrictions. We added gamification element to it: users can engage in friendly competition with others, earn achievements while getting more knowledgeable and making a positive impact on the environment.

How we built it

We began our project by conducting thorough research on open data related to the recycling process in our region. This step was crucial for key areas of development.

Using the insights gathered from our research, we proceeded to develop a mobile UI/UX prototype using Figma. To enhance the visual appeal of our prototype, we utilized icons from the Canva app, ensuring a user-friendly and intuitive design.

After completing the client prototype, we shifted our focus to building a RESTful API server written in Node.js. This is a good tool to provide fast and convenient communication in client-server architecture.

For data storage we chose noSQL database MongoDb. This choice was further reinforced by MongoDB's powerful geolocation tools, which enabled us to efficiently store and retrieve location-based data for our application.

Challenges we ran into

We had our idea but we struggled to manage the time to develop a prototype in a short time span, there were many things we wanted to do.

We used a new technology (Node.js framework Fastify) that shoud have made development process easier but it took a lot of time to navigate through it as it was unfamiliar for us.

We tried to gather the information for our project using Octoparse and scrape info from GoogleMaps with it, but we did it before deciding what we want to present in the end and therefore lost a lot of time on that while not much data went into the prototype.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we did it as a team and managed to create most of what we planned.

What we learned

We understood that developing full-stack solution is impossible in three days, therefore we decided to create a UI/UX prototype in Figma. We understood that we need to concentrate on just 2-3 essential features instead of trying to do it all.

What's next for ReProcess

First, we would like to finish the app and make it fully functional. Next, we want to approach local recycling points to allow us to put on the QR codes at the facilities and then approach local Telegram groups to promote it to people and get them to start using our app.

Built With

• canva
• fastify
• figma
• jest
• mongodb
• mongoose
• node.js
• octoparse
• postman