Waste-ED

start game visit waste-ed.tech
instructions on how to play

Mission

Waste-ed is an educational game to help children learn about sustainability the fun way and encourage future citizens to maintain eco-friendly habits.

Inspiration

Our game is inspired by the difficulties we've found ourselves and noticed around us when recycling items correctly. Many of us choose to throw away most items or recycle items that are not supposed to be (also called wish cycling). This is especially prevalent with children, where the decision of where to put a used item may appear to be too taxing, resulting in missorted waste. With this game, we hope that users may find recycling to be more sustainable and instinctive, resulting in reduced blockages in recycling centers and a smaller carbon footprint.

Target age group

Waste-ed (waste-education) is targeted towards children ages 6-13. Our goal is to educate children about sustainability and waste in a fun and engaging way.

What it does

Waste-ed is a timer-based online sorting game with users moving an eco-turtle on the bottom of the screen to catch falling recyclable items. We have modelled the recycling regulations after Canada's largest city, Toronto. When the timer is up, a final score is calculated, with points gained for every recyclable item caught and points lost for any wish cycled items.

How we built it

Waste-ed is a game built using javascript, HTML and styled with CSS. We used the VS code as our IDE and learnt many new technologies along the way. Hosting of our website title (link) was done on domain.com.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge in developing the game was learning all the different aspects of game-development as it was the first time for many of us. We used a lot of resources and spent a good chunk of our time researching. However, after several hours of research and teamwork, we successfully managed to create a functional game.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

After 38 hours of team-working and development, we created a fun game for children! We are most proud of how much we got done in such a short period of time and how well we all worked together despite SheHacks being strangers on day one. We are also proud of stepping outside of our comfort zone and connecting with different networking events.

What we learned

We learned that researching is a powerful tool! Many of the issues we faced were solved through a quick google search. We discovered many helpful tutorials and learned a lot about game development and the essential objects (timer, canvas, objects, collisions & sprites) needed to create a game. In addition, as a team, we learned more about Github and our skills in HTML, CSS and javascript.

What's next for waste-ed

We hope to eventually expand Waste-ed to include different eco-characters and recycling types (compost, rigid plastics, etc.), as well as the recycling regulations of more central urban areas to be an accurate source of information for a greater audience.