Trash of Cans

Inspiration

Living on campus, we were inspired by the 3-bin trash cans that organized waste into three categories: compost, landfill, and recycling. We noticed that many students were confused about what to place in each bin or often neglected to put their trash in the right category. Thus, we sought to make these bins game-like by adding a fun twist to it: attaching a moveable basketball hoop on top of it that allows users to aim and score their points for the right objects!

What it does

Trash of Cans is a 3-section trash bin with a moveable basketball hoop above the opening. By adding an interactive component to a seemingly ordinary object, like a trash can, Trash of Cans seeks to engage users by adding the basketball game element to the design and also doubles to ask users to consider how to sort their trash, therefore creating a more environmentally conscious user and society!

How we built it

We began by assembling a 3-bin trash container out of wood, attaching a backboard with a rail system to move the basketball hoop. The wood pieces were designed in SolidWorks, the basketball hoop was fashioned out of wood and recycled cardboard, and the holders and wheels used in the moveable rail system were designed and 3D-printed using Fusion 360. To control the motors, sensors, and display, we programmed two Arduino Uno microcontrollers to take in sensor input and communicate with each other as well as drive our main game system.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the project, we experienced a few setbacks from the limited material availability. We had to adjust our designs to incorporate fewer motors and wood boards that were smaller than our originally planned dimensions. We also encountered bugs in our code that led to inaccuracies in motor movement and sensor outputs. When assembling the different components together, we ran into the challenge of maintaining organization of the wires and aligning the different components of the moveable hoop.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of the fact that we were able to establish communication between two Arduinos and assemble the components of the moveable hoop. These two were some of the most complex tasks that we had to complete, and given the number of setbacks that we had to overcome to accomplish this, we are ecstatic with the way it turned out.

What we learned

As one of the few first hardware projects our team has attempted, Trash of Cans has taught us how to approach initial ideas and build the product step by step. Apart from the basics of steps to take, we also realized that engineering design processes are often full of setbacks that require you to pause and reevaluate the component you’re working on. Luckily, the beauty of engineering is having a team that you can work with to work through each problem, something we definitely learned to take advantage of through the process of building Trash of Cans.

What's next for Trash of Cans

For the future, we’re considering scaling our current prototype up to work on the full-size trash cans that are found on campus and in public. Furthermore, an app that connects users worldwide and compiles a leaderboard for competitions would encourage consumers to engage in friendly competition and challenge each other to engage in more responsible and more sustainable waste disposal practices.

Built With

• arduino