Trash & Win, the platform LePub built for Heineken to turn every bottle and can into a lottery ticket, has a backstory few people know. It begins in our workshop, with a trash can that moves.

Not a remote-controlled toy: a bin that watches. Two OAK-D depth cameras lock onto the can the moment it leaves your hand. A computer vision pipeline, backed by a neural network trained against occlusion, deformation and motion blur, predicts where it will land. The coordinates travel wirelessly to a cylinder on four omni wheels that turns, accelerates and gets there first. We called it Catch Can.

For months we lived inside that sentence. Acceleration curves. Motor torque against a payload that grew heavier with every bottle caught. Floors matte enough for the wheels and contrasted enough for the cameras, 1,300 lux minimum, a transparent wall to keep the throws honest. Borderline engineering — and some of the most fun we have ever had at work.

Then, somewhere between one recalibration and the next, the whole team landed on the same uncomfortable truth: the bin didn’t need to get smarter. We did. Bins can’t go to the trash. People can.

That flip became Trash & Win, launched in Spain in April 2024. Scan your Heineken on TrashAndWin.com, drop it in the right recycling bin, and it becomes a ticket for Champions League matches, festival VIP passes and more. Scan. Drop. Win. The robot stayed in the workshop; its question made it to the street.