Net Room

• 

  Outside of final product

• 

  Testing of our design

• 

  Buzzer component

• 

  Ultrasonic Senors

• 

  LED's

• 

  Breadboard

• 

  Arduino Uno

• 

  Internal hardware of design

• 

  Final product with hatch open

Inspiration

We were inspired to make this project after we were kicked out of the common area in the UofT Chestnut residence because there were too many people. As we were leaving I noticed the person sitting in the corner counted everybody in the room again, and we both thought to ourselves that their time could definitely be much better spent doing something other than counting heads. We were inspired to make a design that could take on this responsibility. Our main inspiration was the belief that our project could help Chestnut run more efficiently as employees could be doing more important tasks around the building, rather than sitting and counting people in a room.

What it does

Our project uses two ultrasonic sensors to count the people leaving and entering a room. If the people in the room is less than the capacity then the box will emit a green light. If the room exceeds the capacity then the green light turns off, a red light turns on, and a tune or beeping begins to be played (whichever the user prefers). Once the room returns back to below capacity the red light turns off, the tune or beeping stops playing, and the green light turns back on. The design's main function is to count the net amount of people in a room, and make sure that the people are alerted when the max amount of people in the room is surpassed.

How we built it

We built it using an Arduino, two ultrasonic sensors, two led's, and one buzzer. We configured all of the hardware on our own, and tried to make the most compact design we could. We took turns building the project, and while one person was building the other was researching new things about the coding and hardware aspects of the Arduino.

Challenges we ran into

Due to having zero experience with all aspects of this project we ran into multiple challenges. The first of which was figuring out how to properly run a working circuit through the Arduino and breadboard. Another challenge we faced was programming it, as neither of us have any c++ experience. Without access to 3-D printer, we needed to make a case for our design with plywood. Finally, our battery died mid project, so our design couldn't run wirelessly in our final demo video in the common area.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Accomplishments we are proud of are fully completing our project. That our project does exactly what we intended to do, with high accuracy and response time. We are especially proud of coding our beeping music as I was able to add my passion for music into our project and I coded that section all from scratch even though I have never used the c++ language. Finally, we are proud that we accomplished a well functioning compact design, without any previous knowledge on Arduino and hardware programming.

What we learned

Through this Hackathon, we learnt and developed quick on the spot problem solving skills. We learnt how to push the project through different phases (from completing scratch to a finished prototype) under 24 hours. We also learnt some hardware programming, and how to set up certain circuits involving Arduino's, sensors, led's, buzzers, and breadboards.

What's next for Net Room

We are planning on continuing to further develop our project over the reading week. For example, we are planning on installing the HC/05 Bluetooth Module onto the Arduino, so we can conduct serial communication with the laptop and between Arduino's wirelessly. This will help us to visualize the change of people remotely. By using multiple sensors we can detect more complex space, such as a dining hall with multiple entries and exits. Last but not least, we can also use the Arduino to send the security on duty a text message alerting them when the occupancy limit is surpassed. The addition of human element will make this occupancy detector a lot more effective in terms of Covid-19 regulation.

Built With

• arduino
• c++