Yelizaveta Hodovikova, a young inventor from Kyiv, 16, spends all her time taking part in different robotics and computer technology contests. As a result, she has developed a project for a smart dumpster that can send alerts about how full a waste container is. This invention can help solve the problem of timely garbage collection, and also lower expenses on gasoline for garbage trucks.
“The idea first came to me during an acceleration at the IT Hub. An acceleration is a kind of a contest for receiving technical and financial assistance for a project. And so, in the evening, with the acceleration taking place in the morning, my mom says: ‘Yelizaveta, do you want to participate?’ I said: ‘I do.’ And she responds: ‘Well, come up with an idea then.’ So I came up with the idea.
At first, it was a waste sorting solution, because this is a huge issue in Ukraine. All waste is thrown into one container. Even if it’s sorted, one garbage truck comes and picks everything up at once. That’s not cool. However, I couldn’t implement a waste sorting solution, because I didn’t have the sensors I needed.
Later the project transformed into a robot that collected plastic waste, but it also wasn’t realized for the same reason – lack of sensors.
One of the projects that my team proposed at the First Lego League competition was a dumpster for plastic cups. Around 5 tons of plastic cups are thrown away in Kyiv every year, while they could be recycled. That’s why we decided to make a dumpster that would have the capacity to fit lots of cups, nearly a thousand at a time.
And then, somehow, after the robot-sorter, and the robot that collected plastic waste, and then the dumpster for plastic cups, I came to the device I have now.
A smart dumpster is a device with sensors that monitor how full the dumpster is, and sends the data to the server. The data from the server can be used to build routes for the garbage trucks. This was done specifically so the garbage trucks could collect waste from the spots where the dumpsters are the most full. The waste from the dumpsters that are not so full can be collected the following day or later on the same day. That would really lower expenses on gasoline, as there would be no need to drive to all of the dumpsters.
It would be most expedient to place such smart dumpsters in residential areas, as there is a lot of waste there, but also in some public places, parks for instance.
People mostly take out the garbage in the morning, while in the evening they take out less. Therefore, most of the waste is thrown into dumpsters in the morning and it stays there, in an overfilled container all day, inflicting damage on the environment. We seem to be nice people, so why do our cities have to be polluted?
There are similar devices in European cities, for example in London. There are also such devices in the Arab Emirates. However, abroad, they cost US $20,000, while mine costs US $50.
At the moment, I have a prototype of this dumpster. After the Clean Streets Contest we were expected to work with Kyiv Smart City Hub to install smart dumpsters in the city. However, our investor couldn’t decide on a concept for the dumpster and left the project.
We appealed for help to Kyiv City Administration, but nothing came out of it. So, for now, the project has been suspended.
Right now I’m trying to find a new idea. But, that’s a big secret!
I don’t have a specific dream as such. But I have goals, broken down into many targets. Essentially, if you look at a straight line when it is depicted in pixels on a screen, it looks like a lot of tiny little stairs. A big goal similarly consists of lots of small stages.
All long-term goals are broken down into short-term targets. That’s why it seems to me that short-term targets are most important. You’ve got to have a lot of them and then, step by step, you can achieve your big goal.
At times, when something doesn’t work out, you keep trying, but still don’t succeed. Then, you just have to put it aside and leave it. In a day or two you come back to it, and it’s suddenly all simple. It turns out that you couldn’t do it because you were trying too hard. It seems to me that this is how it works.
I don’t get A’s in all subjects. I’m not a straight-A student. I study five key subjects: algebra, geometry, physics, English and Ukrainian. These are the subjects I will take my External Independent Testing in. That is why I have to know them the best.
I study at the Technical Lyceum at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and technology, machines, robotics and computer science are the subjects I like the most. I also go to a computer academy in Kyiv, and on top of that take programming and microcontroller classes.
In the future I’d like Ukraine to have a proper system of education, because the current system is based on the fact that everybody has to study everything. It’s impossible to get A’s in every subject now. You want to know everything, but it is impossible. That is why I think that different areas should be singled out for different people to study.
As for the waste issue: To solve this problem requires a change of generation, a change in mentality. For my peers it’s a more important problem; they’re more interested in it. It seems to me that the next generation will be able to sort waste, if they’re taught to do so while they’re still children.”
