PLASTALBOT THE LOCOMOTIVE  ROBOT

As humanity, it is a fortunate privilege to live in a beautiful, diverse, nurturing, awe-inspiring world like earth, thus caring for and protecting it at any cost should be of utmost importance to each and every human being on the planet. The motivation behind our aspirations of building a robot out of recycled materials was born primarily because of the obsession we both had with robots.

THE EXPERIENCE 

Before we began working on our project, we experienced a couple of shortfalls in terms of finding some delicate components, such as an Arduino, and servo motors, only to mention a few, we had no previous experience with the C/C++ programming language, and the time we spent to work on the project and brainstorm on new ideas was very limited and we could meet once a week since we lived in different places.

Despite not having technical knowledge or experience, we were overly enthusiastic to work on something given the passion we had while attaching matters of climate change and environmental pollution as global predicaments dear to our hearts. 

On the other hand, we still made the best out of that experience, thus finding other alternatives of covering up those shortcomings. We managed to find components from worn-out household appliances such as DVDs and toy cars, this allowed us to work on a few prototypes before we could even commence work on the final project, despite not having our homes close to each other, we manage to converge at a workspace that was conveniently close to our respective homes and we also tried to do the most in those few hours we spent to do our work. We went as far as doing personal research and short courses in basic computer programming, AI and electronics while acquiring intermediate skills in the field of electronics associated with robotics and artificial intelligence. It was a simple task to access our plastic materials, as they were obtained from household products like plastic buckets and bottles. I believe the mindset we had too played a role in the success we made, the respect we had for each other and then working together as a team were the things that helped us achieve what we have achieved so far. 

Our project’s name is ‘plastalbot’, a name that has been derived from the word plastic and robot respectively. The idea was to create a robot that performs locomotive functions like human beings do, so that on a few instructions: the robot can perform dexterous functions of course to a limited extent.

PROSPECTS 

So far so good, we have done 65% of the required work, and by that I mean what you can see in the pictures. We have mounted most of the external parts of the robot, but we are still trying to find more electronic components and acquiring them has taken us longer than expected. 

Works for the future will see us make a few changes and upgrades. Prospectively, we look forward to adding more functions to our robot, for it to become Artificially intelligent and carry out more intricate instructions like an average robot can do, where we incorporate additional components like the following;

• LCD screen 

• speaker, 

• Camera, 

• Servo motors 

• LEDs,

• Bluetooth module 

• Raspberry PI Microcontroller, 

• Ultrasonic, Humidity and temperature sensors only just to mention a few other things.  

An upgrade in functions means we equally need an upgrade in knowledge and skills in line with electronics, programming and Artificial intelligence. 

We believe plastics should not be treated as they are treated, everyone can positively do something while being creative and innovative. We intend to use our project as evidence that recycling plastic waste can be done in a variety of ways. Encouraging inventors, innovators, scientists, engineers, politicians, leaders, youths and the general public at large to always care about the earth and its environment. An agent that will teach the dangers of plastics pollution and how it’s related to climate change and encourage them not to throw plastics anyhow

Besides this, we also plan to use him as a catalyst that will popularize STEM education in our community. 

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The fact that plastics are inexpensive, durable and very adaptable for various uses; they become the top most preferred choice for manufacturers and users than any other material. 

The indiscriminate disposal of plastics and other non-biodegradable substances is what makes it a problem and it has become a very big challenge to our communities, and this leaves the environment in a dilapidated state. 

Plastics release toxic chemicals into the environment and they may cause biological damage to various ecosystems. The chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of degradation and as a result, they are slow to degrade thus allowing a large volume of plastics to enter our environments as mismanaged waste thereby affecting the ecosystem. It is so disheartening to see that most people, especially the youths in our communities, are not educated on the hazards of plastic pollution to the environment.

Today we learn human activities in industrialization, construction and the combustion of fossil fuels are causes of the climatic crisis our generation is facing and it turns out that the notion that was built around civilization, development, economic prosperity, and evolution saw our ancestors take the wrong turn, through selfishness in bringing all these things into existence without considering the repercussions it may carry in the end.

CONSIDERED SOLUTIONS

As young climate-change activists and aspiring Robotics engineers, we felt obliged to make action towards providing considerable solutions to this problem by using what is referred to as garbage to create a robot to make everyone realize that not all non-biodegradable substances should be disposed of after use. Instead of throwing them wrongly, we can use science and art to create something out of recycled plastic thereby promoting clean, sustainable and eco-friendly environments.

Seeing the large number of people that are not educated on matters of environmental conservation in our community, makes it an urgent need to raise awareness and sensitization if we are to reduce the prominence of plastic pollution. If we can have as many people reducing plastic consumption, considering reusable products, conducting regular litter-cleanup, and promoting plastic recycling would leave us advantageous in our endeavour to fight environmental pollution and climate change.

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