The Air Pick Up

CONNOR MCNALLY

Age 9 | Ottawa, Ontario

This is a project submitted to Little Inventors, an educational organization inspiring young thinkers to imagine inventions and to become caring citizens of the planet.
Click here to see this project on the Little Inventors website.

What is your invention called?
My invention is called Air Pick Up.

What is the purpose of your invention?
Its goal is to pick up as much garbage as possible and it has a sensor for plastic, metal and glass (not animals).
I had many ideas but I chose Air Pick Up because it can pick up garbage on land and out of the ocean. My reason for inventing a device to also pick up from land is because if there is less garbage on land there is less garbage on the ocean.

How does your invention work?
There would also be docks on the ocean so that Air Pick Up could go and put garbage in the garbage cans and so that animals could hide under the dock from predators.
My Air Pick Up will see these bright orange garbage cans and it will know they are deposit zones. People who are citizens will put bright garbage cans out on their property.
When it picks up small pieces of garbage there will be small garbage cans on the side of Air Pick Up. If the Air Pick Up is in the ocean it will go to the docks in the ocean to empty its loads and if it is being used at a river or lake the garbage can will be on land.

What does your invention look like?

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This is a picture of the Air Pick Up in the ocean picking up garbage. The background is of the dock with garbage cans so it can put garbage in.

Name the basic features/components of your invention.
My Air Pick Up looks a bit like a drone, and would have 1 or more propellers for flight. It also has a body that the propeller, camera, and arms for picking up garbage are attached to. The solar panels are important because it does not have to fly to land to charge. The computer will go inside the body. These components will be made of light metal plastic, and silicon for the solar panels.

How do you think you could measure the impact of your project?
The drone will have sensors on the garbage cans to see how full the garbage can is. It will know when there is wildlife in the area and if they are healthy animals or not. It will detect how much garbage is in the ocean and if there is none, that is a good thing. When the garbage can is empty, that means that part of the river, lake, or ocean is clean.

What are the main problems that inspired your invention?
The problems which inspired my project are:

  1. The animals need to be healthy for them to survive and we need them to survive for us to get company, food and have fun with them.

  2. One of my favorite places is PEI because my cousins and grandparents live there. Me and my cousins on PEI always go around picking up sea glass because we want to protect animals. To make it fun we make it a competition.

  3. I feel sad for animals because they haven't hurt us and we are polluting their homes.

Why are these problems important to you?

If animals eat plastic or other garbage they will get sick and if we eat the animals, we can also get sick. As soon as I heard that sharp sea glass can cut turtles’ bellies open, I felt really sad and wanted to help the turtles. When they eat plastic it can injure them in different ways. I wanted to see Air Pick Up in real life and I wanted to help save the animals with my invention.

Show us a picture of a waterway close to you that you want to keep clean. What is its name?
There are two waterways close to me: Mooney's Bay because I have seen lots of garbage there and Kars because my uncle lives there and I can collect garbage from the middle of the lake because my uncle has a boat.

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This is a blue Heron on my uncle's dock in Kars. When we see garbage we will pick it up.

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This is the turtle that I drew. I want to protect the turtles from dangerous garbage such as plastic, metal, seaglass, and tires.

ABOUT THE INVENTOR

My name is Connor Mcnally and I am 9 years old. I live in Ottawa,Canada and go to a school named Westboro academy. My favorite summer activities include swimming paddle boarding and wakeboarding (see a picture of me on the Ottawa River in Kars). One of my favorite place are the beaches of PEI where my cousins and grandparents live. I would be happy to work with the maker communities or company designing and producing the Air Pick Up.
Big thank you to Rhiannon Ng for helping me with this project.