Hack&Think - Space Apps Challenge

Hack&Think| Sustaining Our Planet for Future Generations

Sustaining Our Planet for Future Generations

There is concern worldwide that environmental issues we face today will have an impact on future generations. Your challenge is to create a way to communicate the importance of environmental responsibility to people of all ages.

WATERFLY EFFECT

Summary

Waterfly Effect is an application designed to raise awareness and offer solutions about the water pollution. The reason we chose water pollution for our challenge is that we believe water pollution is one of the most urgent environmental issues and that it has many negative effects on the sustainability of the environment. Waterfly Effect consists of 6 different parts. Each part is designed for different communication paths such as informing, encouraging people to take action, etc. Our aim in this project is to use the technological advances to communicate the importance of the water pollution to all generations for a sustainable environment.

How We Addressed This Challenge

The challenge we chose is Sustaining Our Planet for Future Generations. This challenge asks us to communicate the importance of the sustainable environment. To do so, we determined an environmental issue that seemed more urgent than others: water pollution. The reason behind this decision is the fact stated by Bradley Doorn: "All the water on Earth already exists. We can't make more. We can only track it, predict it and protect it as it cycles around our world." [1]. Also, water pollution has some serious effects on the environment such as ocean acidification, eutrophication, floating garbage patches on surface of oceans, and harmful effects on living organisms.

To overcome the difficulties caused by water pollution -that prevents the existence of a sustainable environment- we used the technological advances and designed an application. In this application, there are six different sections:

Bring Your Own Plastic: It is a competition conducted under three different categories. The aim is to raise awareness about the overuse of plastics and encourage people to consume less plastic. In all three of the contests, the rule is simple: Everybody has to bring their own plastic. After the competition has come to an end, winners' work will be displayed at a plastic recycling point. The rest of the plastics will be taken and recorded to be recycled.
Green Tasks: It is a daily to do list to motivate people to make small changes for a sustainable environment. These tasks are assigned according to the user's level. The level gets higher as the tasks are completed. When users complete particular levels, they get awarded such as getting free tickets for cinema/theater/concert, or getting discounts at market.
Find&Cycle: It is a service that helps people to spot the closest recycling points in their neighborhood. These recycling points include glass, plastic, paper, oil, battery, and fabric. The goal is to make it easier for people to recycle the materials and is to help nature to preserve it's balance.
Did You Know That?: It is an information page that informs the users about water pollution. It aims to communicate the importance of a sustainable environment through notifying.
About Us: It is the section that users can communicate, share their ideas with us or give feedback to us.
My Profile: In this section, users can access to their account settings and more. They can change their username or password, see the awards that they have won by completing Green Tasks. Additionally, they can make applications for Bring Your Own Plastic! contests and add their location to be able to use Find&Cycle. Finally, users can see their levels and chat with other users.

We hope Waterfly Effect to communicate the importance of a sustainable environment to all generations by informing, offering assistance and solutions, encouraging people to take action about the water pollution. We give major importance to the terms "sustainability" and "environmental responsibility" in our work. We chose the name Waterfly Effect and we decided our icon to be a butterfly, because we believe that one individual can ignite the spark to save the environment and create a butterfly effect which results in a big movement.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/when-it-comes-to-water-you-have-to-think-global

How We Developed This Project

When we first decided to take part in the Space Apps Challenge 2020, we have listed all the challenges that had taken our attention. Among all of them, Sustaining Our Planet for Future Generations attracted us more. We were inspired by biennial organized at Istanbul, that discussed the effect of the overuse of plastics on oceans. We thought that the water pollution was one of the biggest obstacles in front of a sustainable environment.

Once we have decided our challenge, we have listed all the causes and effects of the water pollution on environment by the help of the space agency data. After studying these, we tried to produce solutions and discussed the possible communication ways. As a result of our brainstorming sessions, we came up with the idea of designing an application. The reason behind that was to use today's technological facilities to reach maximum number of people from all generations.

While designing our application, we tried to use different communication ways in order to connect with people from various age-groups. To achieve this, we designed branches for specific purposes. As an example, we created Bring Your Own Plastic! to encourage people to take action, and created Did You Know That? to inform them. By doing this, we hope to inspire people to educate theirselves and take responsibilities about the environmental issues.

We had difficulties in two areas while creating the project. First one was trying to find the idea capable of making people realize the importance of sustainability and encourage them to take responsibilities about the water pollution. The idea had to be simple but yet strong enough to draw people's attention. The second was to try to figure out the format of the application. We wanted it to be understandable and easy to use. To do so, we spent most of our time to design an optimized layout. To overcome these difficulties, we did brainstorming sessions together and had an exchange of ideas frequently. This allowed us to gain an insight about the project. Thus, we believe that we came up with an applicable idea and produced an original project with an eye-catching design.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We used space agency data to understand the reasons of the water pollution and to produce solutions for it. It helped us to understand the severity of the issue. Also, we plan to use the data from space agency in Did You Know That? and Green Tasks section. We want to provide users with environmental facts offered by NASA. Additionally, we hope to shape daily tasks to be given to the users according to information found in these databases. All links to the facts are also given in the application.