May 2023
The Litterbug was a group project for an engineering and design class I took in my junior year of high school. The assignment was to make an autonomous vehicle powered by a Raspberry Pi. The project was open-ended, and every group was given a budget for ordering materials: geared DC motors, rubber wheels, an infrared sensor, a webcam, and aluminum extrusion. Our robot was designed to look like a ladybug that would pick up trash using a conveyor belt. Then it would store it– like an oversized Roomba that could be used outdoors on the sidewalks of Philadelphia to collect large objects. The project included many hardware decisions and a 3D printing design that optimized strength and weight. We also developed the code for the robot and experimented with different sensors for its autonomous operation. The most reliable system was an ultrasonic distance sensor, but we also used a webcam powered by machine learning that would find trash, go towards it, and avoid obstacles.
