Re-APPly is a Python GUI Program developed by four students of grade 9 from Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai. Re-APPly aims to gamify the process of upcycling old household items and giving them a new use. The program was written in Python and uses libraries such as Tkinter and SQLite. Re-APPly won an award for the 'Best Beginner Hack' at the October 2020 Steel City Codes Hackathon.
According to BBC, the world produces over two billion tonnes of municipal solid waste every year, enough to fill over 800,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year. Recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for two whole weeks. We bin around 50 million tonnes of electrical waste globally every year. That’s nearly 4 million double decker buses. Humans now buy a million plastic bottles a minute. Most of this plastic ends up in the ocean. By 2050, the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish. Waste causes greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming.
And that's why we came up with our solution, Re-APPly. Re-APPly is an app that helps users upcycle items that potentially would be their trash, into something valuable for both the user and the environment. We developed this app using Python and its libraries, such as sqlite and tkinter. Once the user opens the app, they sign in and they can then enter the name of the item that they want to upcycle. The app retrieves the ways to upcycle the item from our database which is ever-expanding. The user then chooses what they want to make using that particular item. The app then displays the steps in order to upcycle the item. Once done, the user earns points for their effort, and also converts the item that was useless to them into a much more valuable and useful item.
We project this app to be a really good influence on the people of this world and therefore we have big plans. Our goals for the future include:
- Expansion of the database to more than 20 recyclable items, and more than 3 methods of recycling.
- Provision of a “share” feature enabling users to share photographs of their recycled products on Instagram, Whatsapp, etc.
- Formation of mini groups, where users can compete with each other in terms of their points, and can share images of their upcycled projects. This will encourage users to upcycle more often.
- Incentivisation by the use of the point system: Users can implement their earned points as a currency to trade with other users. The tradable goods will be the upcycled projects.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/170uu0CBsVqJzDZqe3MborD5-4q6ydjcIYEPYoyo1zkA/edit?usp=sharing