Inventing an automatic trash sorter may sound like a daunting task, but brothers Benjamin and Geva Segal saw a need and created their product, EcoSort, within 36 hours.
“We competed in a couple of hackathons and we wanted to do something creative,” recalled Geva, a student at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. “We were walking on the Brandeis University (where Benjamin is a student) campus on the same day of the Harvard hackathon in October and saw that the trash cans were full and nothing was sorted.”
“What bothered us the most was that we were in an educated place that cares about the environment and it was happening here. If this was happening here, it was happening everywhere in the world,” Benjamin remarked. “We started to do research and even though it seemed impossible, we believe everything is possible if you are dedicated enough and you want to accomplish it with people you care about.”
“We wanted to come up with a solution. College campuses show that they care, but they don’t know how to start so it becomes ‘just put it somewhere,’” Geva added. “We determined that the solution was to build a machine that makes the decision for you. The machine does everything.”
“We were determined to just go to the hackathon and build it,” Benjamin said. “That’s how we finished it in 36 hours.” The finished product at HackHarvard18 was made out of cardboard and plastic with one of the arms that pushed trash into the correct bin made from a toothbrush.
“People were amazed by the product we made in such a short time.” The brothers teamed with Olivia Banks of Brown University and Evan Hoffman of Clark to win the Harvard hackathon competition and returned to their busy lives on their respective campuses. “We wanted to do this but knew that we will need to move on with our day after,” laughed Benjamin.
FROM ISRAEL TO THE U.S.
In high school, Benjamin was competing in international robotics competitions such as Robocup in Austria, RoboWaiter in the U.S., and young scientist competition at his home country of Israel. “When I came to the U.S. for competitions, I was amazed by the opportunities,” he said. “I always wanted to come back to study.”
Benjamin received the Malkin Israeli Endowed Scholarship from Brandeis before knowing exactly where he wanted to go. “I looked into the school more after getting the scholarship and appreciated the areas of study and the Jewish values at the school,” he commented. “One of the best things is that there are a lot of international students, who are integrated with the U.S. students, but also bringing their own nationality onto campus for a different perspective.”
He came to Brandeis after serving his mandatory military service at a special unit in Israel. “I accepted the scholarship to Brandeis, which allowed me to come to the U.S.,” he explained. “I could not have afforded it otherwise.”
Geva had been working with computers since he was very young and sought to come to the U.S. to study computer science. “Benjamin and my sister, Daniella, who is in the innovation field and was on the west coast, both encouraged me to come,” he recalled. “I went to Boulder, Colorado for an entrepreneurship program at the Watson Institute for four months and knew I wanted to study here.”
What Geva didn’t know what was where to go to school in the U.S. after he completed his military service. “Applying as an international student was really hard. I wanted to be on the east coast since we have some family in Connecticut,” he recounted. “I learned about Clark from its web site and saw how passionate the school is about innovation. I liked that it is a small school and they offered me a scholarship, which helped me with my decision. It is perfect for me because I get to focus on my studies and then when I do participate in competitions, I get so much support from the university.”
SCHOOL AND MICROSOFT
The brothers returned to their accelerated double majors at their respective universities after the Harvard competition and focused on their studies. Benjamin was continuing his double major in computer science and neuroscience at Brandeis, while Geva was continuing his studies at Clark, majoring in computer science and mathematics with a minor in entrepreneurship.
“Months passed after Harvard and we forgot all about the competition,” Geva chuckled. “In February, we received an invitation from Microsoft to create a proposal, video, and a technical documentation for EcoSort to earn a spot in the company’s annual competition.”
The ImagineCup, often referred to as the “Olympics of Technology” is an annual competition sponsored by Microsoft that encourages computer science students to use their creativity, passion, and technological savvy to better the world.
“We still had the software and the technology we built, but we had not done anything else with it,” Geva communicated. “We did everything else we needed to during spring break and in addition to our school work. We weren’t sure we could do it, but both our schools supported us.”
After submitting the online submission, the Segals received notification that they were one of 12 teams out of 40,000 applicants from the U.S., South America, and Canada to be accepted into the Imagine Cup. “We were really happy, but we knew it would be really hard to be ready for the competition at the beginning of May.” Geva recollected.
“People thought we were crazy and said we would never make it in time,” Benjamin recounted. “We pulled about four or five all-nighters every week. It is hard to explain the pressure between finals and trying to build something that should take six or seven months to do.”
“We started building the real prototype the last month of the semester and it was really tough,” Geva expressed. “Every weekend, I would go to Brandeis. We got a lot of support from the Brandeis Maker Lab – innovative lab for printing, scanning, and mechanical engineering.”
Even getting to the competition was a challenge due to the size of the machine the brothers built. “They flew us and the machine, which was almost the same height as me (6-foot-3), to Seattle,” Geva recounted. “We had to make a machine that we could disassemble for the airplane and reassemble for the showroom. Every option had to be included. We built something that was modular so we could do the disassembling and assembling in less than an hour. We had so many materials that we needed a snowboard bag and three luggage to carry them all. We arrived in Seattle at night on May 1st and went to the library to study for our finals and submit our school assignments. We pulled an all-nighter studying and making sure all the technical components of our machine were working. We even went to Target to buy coffee beans to implement a unique idea we had.”
We used a universal gripper, a technique to pick up objects. The universal gripper conforms to the object it is grabbing, rather than being designed to grab a specific object. and invented by Researchers from the University of Chicago, Cornell University, and iRobot Corp back in 2010. Just as the original inventors did, the Segals put small coffee grains into a balloon and saw the shape of the balloon changed to the shape of the item it was picking up.
On May 3, 2019, the brothers made their pitch to possible investors and entrepreneurs. “We did not win there, but many people liked our product,” Geva said. “We improved the product with such a short turn-around. People were amazed and asked so many questions. We did more than 50 demonstrations in an hour or two. We learned a lot and met a lot of incredible people. By doing this event, Microsoft showed it is really supporting solutions and new ideas.”
“We didn’t win, but we were in a select few of 40,000 students,” said Benjamin, who is finishing his BS/MS in neuroscience during his senior year’s degree in neuroscience. “From an investor perspective, it was hard to find people to put money into the business, but we hope to change that. We want to change the world and be more creative in changing convention. Once I am out of school, I would like to open a company, probably something dealing with sustainability.”
“So many schools are encouraging entrepreneurship now and it encourages us,” stated Geva, who is entering the final year of his three years accelerated undergraduate studies at Clark. “I’d like to form a start-up, funding it for a year or two, and then going on an individual path to creatively solve problems. We were happy to show that you can have an impressive solution to tackle problems not being addressed.”
“We had so much fun building this creative idea with all the obstacles involved,” Geva expressed. “It was a creative way to spend family time.”