TetraBin Turns Disposal Of Rubbish Into A Rewarding Game
Waste and waste management has become a major concern now. But it ends up there anyway for various reasons: bins overflow, sometimes they’re hard to find and worst of all, some people just don’t care what they do with their trash. But Sencity seeks to fight this indifference by turning litter disposal into a game with its new TetraBIN, a connected trash bin that rewards you for tossing out your garbage. TetraBIN is designed to inspire people of all ages to become eco-aware and this way the disposal of rubbish is meaningfully turned into a game.
Using Gamified Approach.
TetraBIN traverses the ways in which digital technologies can be used to motivate positive change in urban environments. It uses gamified approaches, that is making use of game mechanics and game thinking. This way turning an activity traditionally considered insignificant into a joyful event.
Encouraging Active Attitudes.
These are designed to strengthen the experience of interacting with urban furniture, with the goal of encouraging more active attitudes from people who earlier devoured it in an unresting manner in a relatively insignificant activity. It tackles the problem of littering by connecting the act of rubbish disposal with a rewarding activity. The act of putting rubbish into a bin is turned into a game. Here a piece of rubbish is plotted to an interaction within a game world displayed on a computer controlled screen that surrounds the bin.
Depositing trash into a bin is normally seen as a passive act requiring minimum thought. But here it is given importance as the participant is supposed to drop their rubbish into the bin at the right moment to move further in the game. This experience of an augmented reality in which actions in the real world affect the virtual world will help lead the participant to consider environmental issues facing the city.
An Interactive Bin.
TetraBIN aims to tackle the problem of littering by making the disposal of rubbish fun and rewarding. Resembling 8-bit era video games, it charts the disposal of rubbish to interactions within a game displayed on a computer-controlled LED screen wrapped around the bin. There are custom-made sensors inside the bin that are triggered every time a piece of rubbish is dropped into the bin. As the rubbish is drowned into the bin a digital building block is released from the top edge of the LED screen. Once an entire row is filled with building blocks it disappears and makes room for more blocks.
Easy Gameplay.
The game mechanics are relaxed in order to allow participants making up their own game rules. Participants can collaborate to create a vertical stack, which restarts the game, or compete by each creating their own vertical stacks. Apart from reducing litter, TetraBIN summons the public into brief social interactions and to consider environmental issues in the city.
Get Your Prize From The Website.
The container has a wrap-around screen, a side-scrolling green field that comes complete with bats in the air and dogs on the ground. When you throw something into the trash can, motion detectors sense this movement. It’s then represented on-screen as chicken drumsticks falling through the sky to feed the hungry dogs. When you feed a dog, you win. A code will appear on the TetraBIN that you can input on Sencity’s website for prizes, some of which are tangible objects that you can receive in the mail.
It Does Other Things, Too.
Sencity’s goal is to associate with city governments and local business improvement districts to bring the TetraBIN everywhere. In cities where some trash cans already double as Wi-Fi hubs, this smart bin seems a natural incorporation. TetraBINs employ 4G technology and can actually communicate with one another, opening up the possibility of an entire connected trash can network. If you don’t want games on the trash can, it displays other things too, like public transportation schedules, traffic updates, and the weather.
Nisarg is the Business Development Manager at Nimblechapps, a top mobile game development company and has been with the organisation since its inception in 2014. He likes to update his knowledge on changing trends in technology and marketing and pens his thoughts regarding the same on various blogs and LinkedIn.