Trash Attack

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  Game Name + Logo

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  In-Game Level Screen

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  Gameplay

Our Inspiration

We created Trash Attack to educate young children on how to properly dispose of their garbage. Many people don’t realize that it’s a problem; we throw out so many recyclable items simply because we don’t know better.

Our group doesn't think we were ever officially taught what items go where when we no longer need them. We were taught to memorize the 3 Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle - but we never learned what items were compostable versus recyclable. And as we grew older, we posed these questions to many others around us, but found that they didn’t know the answers either. We didn’t know that paper items that had food stains weren’t recyclable, and could contaminate the rest of our trash. (Check out this article: Recycling Contamination CBC). Overall, our well-intended actions to try and reduce waste were actually contributing to a larger environmental footprint.

The aim of our project is to instill within children an interest in proper waste disposal through a game they can easily explore. Through positive reinforcement for correctly sorting the items, we are certain that Trash Attack can help kids develop one of the most important habits necessary to keeping our planet clean.

We hope you enjoy our game!

What Trash Attack Does

Trash Attack is a video game coded in Python designed to teach elementary children about proper waste sorting. In this game, players control a bin to catch waste items falling from the sky. Though the types of waste are limited at first, more varieties are introduced as the game progresses. Ultimately, the player must learn how to sort a diverse selection of waste products into 3 bins at their disposal: garbage, compost, and recycling.

Controls: Left/Right arrow keys: Movement Space: Pull in and collect waste items overhead A/S/D: Swap between garbage, compost, and recycling bins

How We Built It

We built Trash Attack using the Python 3 programming language and pygame modules. We figured that, since all of our group members were at least somewhat familiar with python programming, Trash Attack was a feasible project to make given the time constraint. All of the graphics were created in Adobe Illustrator, and we found various sound effects/music from the internet to enhance gameplay.

Challenges We Ran Into

Because most of our team members do not have extensive coding knowledge, we had a shaky start in terms of figuring out how to collaborate on code and divide up our tasks. Originally we tried Git, switched over to Google Docs of all things, and finally decided to work together on repl.it. We also had some learning to do when it came to working with Pygame and creating all the graphics + editing the video, but it all worked out in the end :)

What's next for Trash Attack

• National implementation in elementary schools across Canada.
• Monthly updates that introduce new items.
• Sponsorships and collaborations with education/environmental organizations.

Built by Super Trash Bros™ - Hanson Liu, Seaya Liu, Yifei Ma, William Yao & Linda Zhao

Built With

• github
• pycharm
• pygame
• repl.it