reduce. reuse. recycle.

Recycling is a global industry accounting for more than 1.5 million jobs and $100 billion in annual revenue. As a whole, the industry currently processes more than 600 million metric tons of material annually, growing with the expansion of the global, green economy. This global expansion presents an increased need for new, efficient and cost-effective waste material sorters. The goal of the 2010 ASME Student Design Competition is to design, build, and test an autonomous system capable of accurately sorting common recyclable materials, namely ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics and glass into distinct waste containers.
 
 The paragraph above is the abstract from the ASME Student Design Contest for the 2009-2010 competition period. The senior design project that a partner and I have worked on consisted of designing, building, and testing an autonomous system, of which one may call a robot, that is capable of accurately sorting four common recyclable waste materials. Most of the time was done in research and testing phase geared to having the sensors to detect the recyclable waste materials accurately. Automated operation was left as the final swing of the project granted there was enough time. By the end of the Spring semester in 2010, the frame, motors, conveyor belt, and sensors were all fully assembled into an autonomous unit. The only part that was lacking from the final design was the assembly of the designed hopper to feed the recyclable waste containers into the unit.