SCRAPPY

Meet Scrappy, a friendly, follow-along trash collector that opens on a gesture and encourages proper disposal through fun, game-like interaction. It turns sustainability into a habit, not a chore.

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Inspiration

Often times, when no trash cans are around, we will either place the trash in your pocket and hopefully remember to throw it away later, or, more commonly, throw the trash on the ground. This causes a huge issue as pollution and litter build up in public spaces, parks, and campuses. We wanted to address this everyday problem in a way that felt fun and meaningful, rather than a chore. By turning waste disposal into a game, we aim to encourage sustainable habits through engagement.

What it does

Scrappy is a mobile trash companion that follows the user and opens when a specific hand gesture is shown. When activated, Scrappy enters a "game-mode", turning trash disposal into a quick, playful mini-game. This encourages cleaner environments through engagement instead of obligation.

How we built it

Hardware

  • Raspberry Pi 5 for our main controller
  • 2 TB6612 motor drivers to control 4 DC TT motors
  • 5x AA battery pack to power DC motors
  • Raspberry Pi Camera to determine gestures and distance from the bot
  • Ultrasonic sensor to detect if trash has made it into the bin
  • Custom 3D printed mounts for attaching sensors

Software

  • Hand-tracking and gesture recognition trained by machine learning
  • Motor control via GPIO with tank-style steering
  • Toss-mode, where the lid opens and the ultrasonic sensor detects the trash

Challenges we ran into

  1. Losing 1 team member, he was busy and left us the day of
  2. Training our own computer vision recognition model
  3. Soldering our own motor drivers
  4. CADing housing for our sensors
  5. Wire management
  6. Not enough power (specifically current)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  1. Being able to move the wheels
  2. Fixing our broken battery pack
  3. Training our own computer vision model
  4. Completing this project

What we learned

  1. How to work with Raspberry Pi
  2. How to use the gpiozero library
  3. Finding CAD models/designing the bin so that components will not interfere with each other

What's next for SCRAPPY

If to be continued, we plan on a few things:

  1. 3D printing the trash can instead of using a cardboard box
  2. Find a better power source that supplies enough current
  3. Add trajectory detection so that Scrappy can catch the trash
  4. Adding different compartments within the bin
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