Green Screens

We have developed an idea that would allow cities to reduce air pollution while improving public spaces to attract more tourists, benefitting both the economy and environment.

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Inspiration

We were inspired to create a solution for air pollution, as it has been increasingly clear that air quality is deteriorating, as seen through smog being a prevalent norm in several countries worldwide. This can potentially lead to negative health effects such as respiratory illness and inflammation, as well as cardiovascular diseases and in some cases even premature death. Thus, making the issue of poor air quality even more paramount and an issue we want to resolve.

What it does

Green Screens are able to simultaneously enhance a location’s aesthetic while also cleaning pollutants from the air, thus acting to improve the overall air quality and enhance or add to the attractiveness to tourists and visitors. The different variety of structures also leave more room for discovery as tourists find different Green Screens installed throughout a larger area. They are removable structures so that they can be moved to an indoor location in the cases of adverse weather conditions (i.e Toronto winters), and in less desirable seasons for plant growth, the free-standing structures can be left without their greenery as modern art installations.

How we built it

We built Green Screens using Solidworks in order to create multiple 3D models of the design. Additionally we used a hand drawn sketch to show an example of the design.

Challenges we ran into

Challenges we ran into was the time constraint, as we had less than 48 hours to think of a solution and design it. Moreover, due to the hackathon being remote, it made effective collaboration more difficult. Furthermore, due to the fast pace of the workshops we weren’t able to follow along which limited our scope as we couldn’t apply what we learnt from the workshops to our design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating detailed and descriptive drawings/sketches within a limited timeframe. Additionally, another point of pride is that our design directly helps minimize external pollution and positively impacts the environment. Moreover, despite being presented with several obstacles along the way, be it technological or otherwise, our team’s perseverance to keep going was a testament to the great character of each member.

What we learned

Air pollution is an understated concern worldwide with the magnitude of the problem still rising.The astounding numbers mentioned above regarding the deteriorating state of air pollution helped us realize that the time for change is right now. This was the primary driving force behind our goal of designing Green Screens. After being exposed to a plethora of new things in terms of various workshops and completed research, every team member was put way outside their comfort zone and presented with a chance for personal growth. We also realized that remote online work hackathons are still a great way to meet new people and diligently work towards improving our skill-set.

What's next for Green Screens

This is not simply a hackathon project for us anymore but instead something we hope to actively work on to improve our solution and hopefully make whatever small positive difference we can. We hope to continue enriching our knowledge at Waterloo and be able to apply what we have learned to better improve Green Screens and better improve air quality in any city or area. Throughout our design process, we came up with many promising ideas to add to Green Screens, such as adding solar powered air purifiers to the structures as well. In our design gallery we only have 2 types of structures, but later on it would be a great idea to expand to different and more unique structures to further enhance our tourist attraction aspect.

Built With

  • solidworks
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