World's politest dustbin

Six students from the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) at IIT-Bombay have developed an interactive dustbin that actually approaches people and tells them to put trash into it. The device has three sensors programmed to detect the nearest person, align the wheels towards him/her and ask the person to put garbage lying around into the bin. The design team comprising Ajay Mittal, Aniket Sarangdhar, Aniruddha Kadam, Mandar Sarnaik, Saurabh Srivastava and Shaswath V - all second-year students of Interaction Design - have named the device ‘Sustain-o-bin’. It is entirely made up of waste material with some ingenious programming and technology support.
Its three sensors are:

1. An ultrasonic sensor, which detects people and other objects, making the bin ‘follow’ people.

2. An infrared sensor, which keeps the bin inside the marked border and stops it from colliding with objects beyond it.

3. A touch sensor, which enables audio feedback whenever trash is dropped into the bin; it says ‘Thank you’ and moves away.

The bin was designed and developed as a course project and later chosen for an international design conference on sustainability held at IDC this month.
 

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