Recycle It

A crowdsourced recycling locator app

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Inspiration

Often, recycling locations are not well mapped and documented, especially small trash-can sized bins along sidewalks in cities or on college campuses. This makes it hard to recycle materials when on the go. We set out to make it easier for people to find nearby recycling locations on the go via a smartphone app.

What it does

Recycle It provides users with a map and accompanying directions to nearby recycling locations, including small bins, for materials of their choice. Users are offered many material options to find recycling locations for, from plastics, metals, and paper to car batteries and even cooking oil. It also allows users to take a photo of the bin/location to send to our database as a verification. We then update our pinned locations to reflect the most current reported locations.

How we built it

We used Java in Android Studio to develop the app functionalities. We created our server using mongoDB and mongoDB Stitch and embedded our map into the app via the Google Cloud Services Maps API.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into a language barrier because 2 members of our group were not very familiar with Java, which both mongoDB and Android Studio use. We had a huge learning curve for mongoDB, Android Studio, and Java which slowed down our progress more than we would have liked, but we realize that we learned so much as this was our first hackathon. We also had an issue with asynchronizing threads in Android Studio towards the end when trying to connect the data on our server into our app to make points in Google Maps.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of our entire project because it was the first time we used mongoDB servers (and any server), Google APIs, and for most of us Android Studio and even Java to code in. We are also proud that despite the fact that we were thrust into an unfamiliar environment, we stayed confident, positive, and focused on our end goal together. Our end product is also a source of pride for us because of the way it integrates bits and pieces of work we all made into a product that showcases each of our strengths and contributions.

What we learned

We learned about the atmosphere and community of hackathons, and enjoyed who we met and what we learned from different people. We also learned about the backend of creating apps, which is something we came to thoroughly appreciate by the end, as it required us to learn many new terms and functionalities. Finally, we learned and were exposed to many new ideas about creative hacks for the future, and we are grateful for this experience as it will prepare us for projects in the future.

What's next for Recycle It

Next, we would like to finish the feature that allows users to independently verify our recycling locations by submitting photos at their current location that get sent to our server. Then, we would like to add a user login function for security purposes and save user data on our server as well. Finally, we envision either a related app or an in app function that utilizes Clarifai's technology to recognize photos of common recycling materials to inform the user whether or not that product is recyclable and where.

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