RecycleBot

Inspiration

Considering our generation is more affected by the consequences of climate change than any other, our team was extremely motivated to follow the sustainability track. We firmly believe that things cannot carry on as they are now because if they do, we will leave nothing for our future generations. Since methane is emitted during the breakdown of waste, waste creation has a significant impact on climate change. We saw this as a chance to assist not just today but also tomorrow's community. Today's technology has a lot of possibilities. As it affects everyone, whether directly or indirectly, we decided to use technology to help tackle this issue.

What it does

The user can use RecycleBot to either write in a material or take a picture of an object to find out whether it is recyclable or not. A Google Maps API connection is another feature that shows recycling facilities close to the user's current location.

How we built it

Initially, we began by watching a ton of YouTube videos that supported our main concept. Afterward, we made the choice to adopt Appery.io as a tool for mobile app development. We were able to create an application that works with both Android and iOS thanks to the use of this platform. This enabled us to expand the audience for our software and increase usability. To complete the effective functioning of our program, we additionally established databases, Google Vision API, and RESTful services.

Challenges we ran into

The Google Vision API integration was one of our challenges. The intention was to use it to identify objects in a picture taken from the user's photo. We wanted to establish whether or not it was recyclable from the labels that the API would return. It was challenging to receive the right answer from the API request. After extensive investigation and reviewing the instructions, we eventually succeeded in getting it to work, but we still received a blank answer. Perhaps if we had more time, we could resolve this problem.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We take pride in our ability to collaborate and enhance our knowledge of mobile development. For several of our team members, this was their first hackathon, and we were pleased of ourselves for making it to Stanford and completing our project. In order to make the most of our limited time here, we also used the chance to attend a ton of workshops.

What we learned

We discovered new recycling techniques that we were ignorant of during the research and development phase. It revealed to us how ignorant we are of the various ways an object may be recycled and transformed into something new, and of greater worth to the present or other users. We also learned about how technology can best serve humanity when used wisely, and actually enable us to have better lives.

What's next for RecycleBot

We want to improve the Interface to give it a more polished and coherent appearance. In order to accomplish more functionality, we'd also like to fix a few problems with the API integration. In order to have a more complete list, it would be nice to store recyclable materials in a database. We want to add a payment interface to the app.