CINCINNATI — Angelina DiPaola screws a connector into a hand-made circuit board she designed in high school.
"You see those little black spots? Those are not good,” DiPaola said. “And that means my soldering iron is getting old."
She’s working out of a La Croix box on her back porch, and her tool is smoking. Soon, she’s drilling it all together — getting this piece of equipment ready for sale.
It's something she never could have imagined when she thought up a science fair project about composting in middle school.
She wouldn't have believed it, mostly because of how that project was received.
“During that science fair I learned a lot of my classmates didn’t know what composting was, and even fewer of them composted at home,” DiPaola said. “This was really shocking to me.”
So, she spent the next four years coming back to what would eventually become the Compai. She built at least 100 different prototypes, her father said.
Think of the finished product as a Fitbit for your compost bin. It monitors food scraps and gives you real-time feedback about your compost through an app.
“We are in a climate crisis right now, and people are looking at ways to reduce their carbon footprint,” DiPaola said. “And composting is the easiest way to get started on that journey.”
The device runs on solar power and DiPaola sells it for $79. She has a patent pending.
“The bottom line is our generation screwed up the world,” said Mike DiPaola, Angelina’s father. “And their generation will have to fix it.”
Composting is nature's way of recycling, and it can be a big solution to help slow climate change. But most people who start composting eventually stop, DiPaola said.
The Compai makes it easy, helping tell you exactly what you’re doing right — or wrong.
A grant from Hamilton County’s solid waste department earlier this year made DiPaola’s idea a reality. Multiple garden centers and farms in the county now use the Compai.
On Monday, we visited the Civic Garden Center to see how it’s actually working. We spoke to Mary Dudley, who said she was initially skeptical.
“Since I started using it, I have to admit I really enjoyed it,” said Dudley, the education manager at the garden center.
Garden center employees collect food scraps from a nearby restaurant and now monitor the compost bins more closely.
“We're really living it now,” Dudley said. “Instead of just talking about it.”
Hamilton County Resource Outreach Specialist Elise Roalef said composting is something any average citizen can do to help the environment.
“It really is simple,” Roalef said. “In fact, it’s free if you just do a pile in your backyard.”
Angelina DiPaolo will start college next month, where she plans to major in electrical engineering — partly because of her work on the Compai. Beyond that, she says she’s not sure what’s next for her. But more than anything, the teenager hopes her work will inspire others to compost.
