Recycle-Bot: 97101W's Trash Picker
rishita.dhalbisoi
Entry ID #: 9851
Created: Mon, May 31, 2021 11:44 PM
While brainstorming ideas for the Recycle-Bot challenge, we took note of the problems Recycle-Bot is meant to alleviate: the problem of single-use products and litter in our community. On average, households produce around a ton of waste annually. While walking around in our communities, we have also noticed the prevalence of litter on the sidewalks and fields; to reduce the impact of cardboard packaging at home and reduce litter in our streets, we decided to create a trash picker that anyone could create and use. The trash picker would also allow the user to be safe while helping their community as it prevents the user from directly touching trash, which is especially important for sanitation during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this project, we designed a robotic arm where users pull on a handle that are attached to strings—this would result in the fingers serving as an enclosing claw and clamping on the litter. The strings were channeled through a line of straws glued onto the fingers and the strings would run inside the pole base from the fingers to the handle the user pulls. The materials we used include string, used straws, gift wrap rolls, a hot glue gun, tape, staples, cardboard, x-acto knife, and a metal soda can.