IH02-RickySurachman

From IEOR 170 Spring 2007

Horoscope Trash Can

Problem Description:

As you can see, the biggest reason why it is so difficult to keep the environment clean is because many people have a dirty habit of littering. Sometimes, people are too lazy to put their garbage into the trashcan. Even more, those people who are willing to walk and put their garbage into the trashcan, they sometimes do not separate their garbage so that it can be recycled easily. So, the problem that I want to handle in this project is: how to attract the people so that they want to put their garbage into the trashcan, and at the same time encourage them to separate their trash in order to do recycling.

Target User Group:

My target user group is the people who have the habit of littering and also the people who don’t like to separate their garbage into glass, plastic, can, paper, etc to be recycled.

Problem Context and Forces:

As I said before, one of the reason why people don’t like to throw their garbage into the trashcan is because they are too lazy to do it. Even if the trashcan is only several feet away, people are still too lazy. One of the biggest reasons why they are too last is might be because people think that bringing the garbage to the trashcan is not challenging and is no fun at all. So, one way to encourage people to do it is to provide entertainment such as horoscope predictions while doing the garbage that makes the activity of putting garbage into the trashcan fun.

Solution:

This is just like a regular trashcan that has three types of holes for the people to throw their garbage and at the same time separate their garbage (1). The reason why I don’t like to differentiate the size of the three holes (1) to thrown in the garbage is because if one hole is bigger than other people will have the tendency to throw the garbage to the big hole no matter what type the garbage is. The unique thing about this trash can is that it has birthday panel (2), horoscope screen (3), and sensor inside the trash can that can detect people throwing their garbage. The way this trashcan work is: First, the user throws the garbage into one of the holes. Then, the sensor will read it and activate the panel (2). At the same time, the “Insert your birthday” sign will light on. The user then can insert their birthday and press “end” to finish the process or “del” to erase a number if he/she made a mistake. If no one put a number within 10 seconds, the panel will automatically turn off. Finally, after the user finished inserting his/her birth date, the horoscope screen (3) will display the user’s horoscope for that day.