Overview

Despite for the societal push encouraging mindful recycling practices, there is still a lot of misinformation (or lack of information in general) about sorting containers. More often that not, waste, recycling and compost get swapped in households, corporate buildings, and public places. To prevent this from happening, we decided to tackle the problem but automating the recycling sorting system.

The Plan

<aside> 🔧 The Big Task: Using a Q-bot, Q-Arm and Python, create a program that automates the sorting process of recycling.

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<aside> ♻️ The Plan: Using a variety of sensors and a virtual environment to simulate the waste sorting process.

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Screenshot 2023-04-12 162302.png

The virtual simulation environment


P3 Progress Tracker

Applicable Skills

Soft Skills

✅ Teamwork and cooperation

✅ Time management

✅ Organization and planning

✅ Oral communication

Technical Skills

✅ Python programming

✅ Debugging skills

✅ Report writing

Design Process

Splitting the work into 2 sub-teams, our group tackled the physical and software parts of the project. As part of the computing sub-team, I focused on the software component.

The program works through a workflow, first depositing containers, identifying their properties, transferring them to the Q-bot, carrying them over to their appropriate disposal bins, and then repeating the process.

Code

Depositing and sorting the container

Transferring the container to its bin

Putting it all together

<aside> 💡 For the complete code and demo, please refer to the Log Book

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