STEM Highway Litter control

Other
1

Hello!

"Could someone please provide a shopping list from SparkFun.com for a middle school STEM project? My son wants to build a camera system to simulate capturing photos of litter being thrown from a moving vehicle.

The setup will involve a mini pole with a camera sensor mounted on a portable table. On the table, a small “car” will roll along a “road” and toss an object (representing litter) as it moves. The camera sensor needs to capture a snapshot of the debris being thrown, and the resulting image should be displayed on a computer screen. My son is passionate about addressing the issue of roadside litter.

We’re planning to use two motion-activated camera sensors—one positioned in front of the car and one behind it—both facing the path of the toss. Crucially, the camera should be triggered by the litter itself, not by the car’s movement.

We prefer to utilize a breadboard for prototyping, along with some soldering to finalize the project kit. Could you provide a list of the necessary materials?"

Thank you!

Shawn Broderick,

Washington state.

2

This is likely going to be a very involved project - motion activating cameras will need to be programmed to respond to movement. I’d probably look at https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-raspberry-pi-zero-w-camera-kit.html (maybe 2?) as a decent low-cost starting point. You’d need to hotspot it to WiFi or upload the images locally once the bot is done.

You can also try more powerful options
HQ camera
Wide angle
Pi 4 4GB

For the platform you’ll probably need something beefy, but a 1/10 RC car might be a good place to begin