When Leo Ma first started building WasteCam, it was a one-person mission with a clear goal: stop compostable waste from ending up in the wrong bin. Over the past year, that mission has grown into something much larger, and so has the team behind it.

With Leo graduating in spring 2025, Adam, Luke, and Micah have stepped up to carry the project forward. This transition has been intentional and gradual. Over the past several months, Leo has worked closely with the three of us to ensure that every system, every technical decision, and every relationship built around WasteCam is fully handed off and understood. We're not starting over; we're picking up something we helped build and running with it.

WasteCam 2.0 represents the most refined version of the hardware and software to date. The machine learning model has been retrained on a significantly larger dataset, the enclosure has been redesigned for easier installation, and the touch screen interface has been simplified based on feedback from students who used earlier versions. Our target remains a consistent error rate below 5%, and we're closer than ever.

The work ahead involves finalizing deployment at Brophy, documenting our process for replication, and beginning outreach to other schools interested in adopting the technology. We'll be sharing updates here as we go. There's a lot more to come.