Recycle Bin

Inspiration

As a team we’re passionate about sustainability and raising awareness regarding waste reduction. Naturally, a challenges centered around improving the community and environment jumped out at us. Recycle Bin is meant to take the competition of a mobile game and combine it with the fulfillment of taking an active role in the health of the community and environment.

What it does

Recycle Bin allows users to take a picture of trash they seen on the ground and recycle it for points! The app recognizes common refuse items such as plastic bottles, snack wrappers, etc. If the item is recyclable the user's score increases. Otherwise the user is notified the item is not recyclable. As you collect more trash, your point value increases, which can be compared to the scores of friends.

How we built it

We used Java and Android Studio to develop the app. Google Cloud Platform was used for the Google Vision API to identify characteristics of items that were then used to decide if something is recyclable or not.

Challenges we ran into

Our main challenge was making the app work with Google Cloud Platform. After that development proceeded much more smoothly. Two out of the three of us had no Android Studio or Java experience and so getting us up to speed took a while but allowed us to expand our skill-sets and work on our teamwork.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our main challenge was making the app work with Google Cloud Platform. After that, development proceeded much more smoothly. Two out of the three of us had no Android Studio or Java experience and so getting us up to speed took a while but allowed us to expand our skill-sets and work on our teamwork. We also gained more experience using version control (git).

What we learned

• How to integrate Google Cloud API's within Android Apps
• Increased familiarity with git
• Caffeinated chocolates keep you up

What's next for Recycle Bin

Some things we would like to implement would be user accounts, a global scoring system, and other trackable metrics to compare between users. Long-term the data collected could be used to show what kinds of recyclable litter are most common, and what areas of the country are most/least conscious about picking up excess litter, the implications of which could be used to know where increased community engagement projects are necessary.

Built With

• android-studio
• google-cloud-vision
• java