We found out that China and India were the two biggest contributors to plastic waste, as these countries are not aware of the damage plastic causes to our environment. Furthermore, we thought about using the recently-viral #trashtag challenge as something we could incorporate into our game. We realised this was an opportunity for change and a knowledge-gap where we could do something. Therefore we decided to create a game that could be implemented into schools for children to educate them in the lasting impact of waste in the community, while still having fun. This allows children to understand the importance and purpose of reducing and preventing plastic waste from an early age.
What it does
Each student within a school has their own account. When coming across a littered area, the student takes a picture on the app, clears the garbage and recycling, and takes a picture of the area afterwards. The images are compared to ensure they are of the same area, and for each post stars are awarded to students. These form a currency with which students can unlock different sea creatures for their virtual aquarium. Every time a student wants to submit a before/after picture, a random fact pops up. For each school, there is also a leaderboard for who has done the most clean-ups. This competitiveness may encourage more to participate, especially if the school decides to reward the most environmental students.
How we built it
We used Ionic for the interface of the application, and Firebase. We also used DeepAI to check for image similarity.
Challenges we ran into
Ionic. And also Firebase.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We think our idea has a lot of potential for use in schools!
What we learned
What's next for StarFish
For the current app, we would like to integrate a shop with accessories for your virtual sea creatures, which you can purchase with your stars. StarFish could also integrate an inter-school competition, as opposed to just an intra-school competition. We would like this to be turned into a series of games, so we would create another game for the prevention and promotion of recycling and waste clean up. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!