Engage & persist

Collaborate

Coding

Project Paragraph

Growth Paragraph

Physical Fabrication

This studio, I collaborated with fellow NuVu Students, Milin, and Sadie, to create a machine for processing plastic film in recycling facilities. Most recycling facilities are not able to automatically process plastic bags, and resort to using humans to filter this waste from the conveyor belt. Additionally, the plastic film is often missed, and, in turn adulterates the machinery. We began tackling this problem by focusing on the computer vision necessary for detecting plastic bags on a conveyor belt and decided on using the deep learning system, YOLOv8, for training our model. Creating a good computer vision algorithm, even with a system as good as YOLOv8, requires a large dataset of well labeled images, and a lot of compute. We used Roboflow to collect, label and organize a final data set including 9,100 labeled images(post augmentation) and Google Colab Pro which trained the model with 140 epochs(iterations). Originally, we intended for this project to assist the workers sorting plastic film, through a projector which would guide workers to where the plastic was being detected. We felt we could do better, so instead I designed(fusion 360) and we fabricated an arm to remove plastic bags on an also custom make conveyor belt. This arm is equipped with three degrees of motion(if counting the claw), featuring a robust and uniquely designed claw for grabbing plastic film, without getting damaged by other oncoming and not as forgiving materials. This arm is controlled by an Arduino controlled by a python program running on my laptop. This laptop runs our computer vision model using frames from a webcam mounted above the conveyor belt.

This studio, I focused on maintained a mindset of collaboration, through a lot of open communication, and role organization. I would not have been able to do a fraction of what we accomplished without the help and direction from my teammates. This was cultivated by a maintained culture of curiosity, and dedication to the project. Persisting through times of uncertainty was also something I strived for, and during the last 3 weeks. I implemented a simple principle: "The more confused we are, the harder I will work." Because of my supportive teammates and dedication I learned an immense amount of technical skills in programing, and physical fabrication. Winter brake interrupted this studio, but because I was so invested in the project, I spent a fair amount of my break working on it. Prior to the break, our computer vision model was not fully optimized, and the code for the controlling the arm was not written, so I saw an opportunity to retrain the model, and develop this code, when I probably should have been taking a break. Throughout this studio, I re-enforced my recognition of the value of clearly defining the problem and its design requirements, prior to and as a check to ideating solutions.