Detecto Trash

Inspiration

Overflowing trash cans in dorms and school buildings

What it does

Detecto Trash detects how full the trash is and estimates the time until the trash needs to be taken out. The user receives a text when the trash is full.

How we built it

With an Arduino and a Wifi shield, we used an ultrasonic sensor to measure distance to the trash as well as an LCD display to project data.

Challenges we ran into

Troubleshooting using the Arduino + Wifi shield / using Arduino as an IoT

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Building a working prototype of the sensor as an IoT
• Troubleshooting and finding many pins cannot be used when working with a Wifi Shield
• Troubleshooting Twilio after they discontinued the feature we had originally been working with

What's next for Detecto Trash

Mass production and market penetration, potentially implementing in trash cans in national parks or other places where the trash are fairly remote.

Built With

• arduino
• thingspeak
• twilio