Project
| # | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Event Attendance Tracker Best Engineered Project |
Anand Sunderrajan Eric Layne Mason Edwards |
Dhruv Mathur | design_document1.pdf design_document2.pdf final_paper1.pdf other1.pdf presentation1.pdf proposal1.pdf |
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| Team Members: Anand Sunderrajan (anands3) ONL, Eric Layne (ealayne2) In-person, Mason Edwards (masonae2) In-person # Problem When attending events like the Career fair, Quad Day, and Maker Faires attendees see a huge number of booths, and stop at quite a few as well; seeing so many leads to the attendee perhaps not remembering their website URL or even the name of booths that they only recalled a distinguishing feature of. Additionally, many booths may miss out on people who are interested if they don’t have a chance to talk to the presenter before moving on. # Solution Overview We will develop a standalone, battery powered device which will continuously monitor for booth attendants via Bluetooth Low Energy. If it detects an attendee, it will sync with the smartphone app and it will provide information about that booth. This information could be a link to a webpage, contact information, etc and would be user configurable. Each attendee’s smartphone app would keep track of how long it has been nearby any given booth and log that data to be presented to the user to show what booths they attended. Further, the app could include functionality to notify the booth presenter if the user chooses to provide their email/contact information to be contacted after the event. The smartphone app would use a fair amount of energy, though for a few hours at a major event we believe many attendees would make this trade for the capabilities the system provides. As the event progresses, the device at each booth would display the number of attendees who stopped at each booth, and the battery charge remaining on a small display. This would serve to let the booth presenter know how the turnout to their presentation is, as well as keeping track if the device may need to be plugged in to charge (while still operating) for an especially lengthy event. # Solution Components ## Battery System The battery system will contain a lithium polymer battery, a charger for the specific battery chemistry, a regulator to provide power to the device from the battery. Additionally, the device will need safety features to ensure the battery is not over-charged or over-discharged to ensure the battery is maintained in a safe state even if not charged for many days or is left charging longer than needed. ## Detection System The device would broadcast a BLE message periodically, and all nearby smartphone apps would detect this and determine if the user had ‘stopped’ at any given booth based on how long each BLE connection (distinguishable for each booth) was strongest/available. The app would then use this information about how long a user stopped at each booth to determine what booths the user was interested in throughout their attendance of the event. ## Phone App We would have a phone app that would allow the user to see a list of booths they visited, alongside information about the booth. The smartphone would record how long it was at/detected each booth, and could generate a list of booths which have been ‘visited’ if a person stays near it for a minimum amount of time. This list could be displayed to the user to see more about the booths they attended, and which ones they spent the most time at. After attending a booth, users of the app will be given the option to share their contact information/metadata with the booth presenters to be contacted later (if perhaps they did not get a chance to talk with the presenter or wanted to learn more after the event). ## Container/Enclosure We would like the enclosure to be less than 10cm square and 5cm deep and will be 3D printed. Production versions would of course be made of injection molded plastic and have no viewing window. The enclosure will feature a power button/switch, small reset button, USB charging port, and a small display to indicate battery status and the total number of visitors. # Criterion for Success The battery will need to last at least 4 hours per charge and the device should continue to function while plugged in. Our device would have to consistently recognize booth attendees without false positives from nearby booths (do not show as ‘attended’ a booth unless they were actually at that specific booth). The phone app should be able to create a list of all booths the user ‘stopped’ at, and show those booths along with additional information about each, and giving the option to share their contact information with the booth. The enclosure should make all the switches/buttons, charge port, and display accessible to the user. # Relevant Questions ## Contingency plan If the university goes fully virtual, we can continue development of our project as follows: Eric & Mason have the hardware capability to solder the PCB and test circuitry using various tools (multimeter/oscilloscope). Everyone can work on the software development virtually, with whoever (Eric/Mason) has the hardware can upload the embedded firmware and test the device with the latest compiled app which can be sent over the internet. ## Other Questions Experience with RF: We have experience with BLE and WiFi using the ESP32 microcontroller, which can be the core of our device. Battery Charger Circuitry: We will be designing the battery charging circuit using dedicated charging/BMS ICs specific to the battery chemistry. |
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