All around the world, recycling bins remain unnoticed as people pollute the streets with garbage. Inside the walls of the Bedford cafeteria, students carelessly drop plastic bottles into the trash, unaware of the more suitable alternative of recycling them and the benefit that option can propose to the world.

But deep within the hallways of Bedford, behind a door that gives the faulty impression of an ordinary classroom, are 17 Workshop students led by Mrs. Kerstin Rao, each putting their diverse skills together to work with their groups and come up with something unique. They see this world wide calamity not as an issue, but as a challenge.

This project is led by the seventh grade Workshop students. “When students have creativity and ideas brimming inside them, it’s really smart to channel that energy into something that will help people,” explained Ms. Rao. “What we are hoping for is to get a lot more bottles out of the garbage and into the recycling bins.”

For many months, the students have been working to accomplish their goals of creating an invention that will make recycling more fun and interactive, thereby leading to a greater turnout of recycled water bottles than before.

“In general, middle school students are playful, and if you associate a habit with fun, it is more likely to happen,” Ms. Rao says.

The Workshop students were divided into four teams. They competed against each other to create the most popularly used recycling bin for the students of Bedford. They have tested their inventions during all three lunch waves of a designated day to see which group’s invention resulted in the most recycled water bottles. The water bottles were counted at the end of each day in order to determine the winner.

“Mike Ogrinz, an inventor who won the Qualcomm Invent-off, came in to help launch a Bedford-Coleytown invention contest. Volkswagen’s ‘Fun Theory’ videos in which they put electronic piano keys on stairs which inspire people to walk were also very motivational,” says Ms. Rao.

Zachary Rybchin, a participant of the invention contest, says his team was similarly inspired. “We came up with the idea for our project after we watched videos about inventions that made people recycle.”

While the teams are all working towards the same goal, their inventions vary, with each group having its own unique ideas.
One such group is the Hawks. Their invention is a plinko machine that attaches to the top of a recycling bin for water bottles.

“Our invention is meant to encourage more people to recycle, with the hope that it will be more fun for everyone,” explains Rybchin, a member of the Hawks team.

The Eagles are another team participating in the invention contest.

They have created a new top for the recycling bin. If someone puts a bottle down a pvc pipe, a sign says “good job” that lights up and a dog wags its tail.

“We wanted to give people the sense of having a reward once recycling, so they would want to do it,” says Tessa Moore, a 7th grade workshop student on the Eagles team.

The Osprey team have their own creation to present. They made a lid that attaches to a “recycling game,” consisting of several multiple choice questions.

“I like how the project encourages you to take an action that will benefit others,” says Jane Cheema, part of the Osprey team. “Our invention is already making that happen because a lot of people were interested in the lid when we tested it out.”

Ms. Rao reminds us all to be innovative in a way that makes a difference. “This is a project any creative person can decide to try!”