WALL·E

Gives you a fact about recycling and also a related suggestion on how you can contribute to saving the planet.

Comment

Inspiration

Plastics are everywhere on this planet. They will be here for the next 1000+ years as well. We are using them very widely, even coming up with new use cases for them with time, but hey Earth is not just for us, there are so many living organisms that are affected by these plastics going into landfills, oceans etc. Plastic is just one example, there are a number of other things in the trash that can be recycled.

Everybody is ready to contribute to saving the planet but there are two major steps for it to happen:

  • Awareness: Everyone might be thinking that a couple of plastic bags might not cause much harm to the environment, but awareness needs to be spread about the trillion bags being used every year.
  • Action: Once we create the necessary awareness, we should also provide a means for people to take action.

The name WALL•E, The Robot for the Alexa skill is inspired by the famous trash compactor robot from the film WALL•E produced by Pixar Animation Studios.

What it does

WALL·E creates awareness by telling about the facts that are related to recycling, it follows with a suggestion to help avoid contributing to the damage. The user can ask Alexa something like, "Alexa, ask WALL·E, the robot a fact." to hear a recycling fact and a suggestion to remedy the situation. The user will also get a card in their Alexa mobile application with detailed information and images.

How we built it

We built it using Alexa Skills Kit. Facts and tips were gathered from multiple websites.

What's next for WALL·E

Right now WALL·E only tells a fact and a tip, we think there is more that can be done in future once we have the necessary tools. For example, WALL·E tells a fact like this: In the United States, we throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour – about 42,000 per minute, or about 695 per second. The skill also gives a suggestion like this: Try to avoid the use of plastic bottles, use stainless steel flasks and glass bottles whenever possible. The picture of a stainless steel flask is also shown. In the future, we wish to achieve a more seamless experience by enabling the user to order a stainless steel bottle from Amazon in the very same conversation with WALL·E on an Alexa device.

Share this project:

Updates