Smart Trashcan

Skills Used

PCB designing on Eagle software

 

PCB with nodemcu ESP8266 and GSM module

Software coding on Arduino Platform

My Role: Full Contribution in the project, right from ideation to prototyping.

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Problem: Overflowing public trashcans all over the town.

Current Municipal System: Municipal Corporation sends out trash picking trucks to different areas on different days. A particular area is again repeated for cleanup after many days, causing the bins to flood with trash.

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Our Solution: Smart trashcans which send out an email or SMS text to the municipal corporation, when it gets full, with a message to empty the trashcan and its location. They can accordingly plan their trash pickups.

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Working: Designed a Pressure Circuit that is put all around on the brim of the trash can. When it gets full, it applies pressure on the pressure circuit. The circuit gets closed and lights LED indicating the bin is full. As the circuit gets closed, a timer is set on and counts till 10 mins. This is to prevent any false alarms. It then sends out a mail using Nodemcu ESP8266 about the location of the bin to the municipal corporation if it gets an internet connection. Else it sends out SMS text about same using GSM module.

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Future Enhancements: We can track human activity in a particular area through machine learning and then predict the trash pickup schedules well in advance. This was one of the competitive projects in "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" i.e. Clean India Initiative led by the Indian Government.