One day as I left class with my friend, we stopped at one of our schools trash bins because he needed to recycle his coffee cup. The bins are divided into three sections with pictures to show what goes in them: the landfill bin, the green bin, and the blue bin. My friend stood in front of the bins, trying to dismantle his cup (sleeve, lid etc.), but got so confused trying to figure out what part went where, he gave up and threw it all in the blue bin.
Here is a person who genuinely wanted to recycle and do the right thing, but due to unclear instructions regarding what goes where, made a decision he wasn't happy with.
Here are three important things to know:
<aside> 1️⃣ Most disposable coffee cups are recyclable
</aside>
<aside> 2️⃣ Every year over one billion disposable coffee cups end up in the landfill
</aside>
<aside> 3️⃣ It doesn't have to be this way
</aside>
Our team set out to build an installation that uses Arduino and machine learning to promote and improve proper coffee cup recycling at Sheridan College, in a way that is fun and entertaining to use.
Our initial idea was to have a coffee cup shaped bin with a rotating top, that would identify the item in the users hand, and rotate the lid to expose the proper disposal bin.
During the prototyping phase a number of issues were identified with this design, regarding both UX and mechanics.
Firstly, the goal of the project was to educate users on proper coffee cup disposal, and condition Sheridan students into better recycling behaviours using colour and interactivity. The initial design with the rotating lid caused issues with engagement, because the rotation was too fast and disorienting to initiate curiosity. The code required to achieve this functionality was also a bit out of our scope.
Based on these insights, we decided on a simple teeter-totter style design that made the automatic sorting process more engaging and straightforward, as well as significantly more simple to code and build.