Process

Initially, as a group, we had two different products that performed very similar tasks. This was the usage of lights to relay a message. After receiving feedback we decided to go in a different direction, away from lights. We decided to add a new feature to our neighborhood that would promote environmental consciousness through composting and be connected to the scoreboard tree. After envisioning this idea, we came up a compost bin with two main components: a pushbutton that would determine if the bin was open or closed, and a ultrasonic sensor to see how full the bin was. We wanted to incorporate a thermistor at the bottom to take the temperature of the bin, as over time the decomposition of compost will release heat energy and heat up the bin. However, we decided not to include it because the time that decomposition requires is much longer than is available for our live demo.