It's funny you mention this - we had some ECE students build this exact thing for us for one of their projects. They ended up being $100/piece and required a plugin. They used wifi (definitely some room for improvement there) to notify a web interface and an infrared sensor to detect if people were there. It was a really neat project, the cost and implementation requirements just pushed it out of range to deploy it on a library-wide scale right now.
-----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Andreas Orphanides Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 5:55 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Way to record usage of tables/rooms/chairs in Library If I were feeling really ambitious -- and fair warning, I'm a big believer that any solution worth engineering is worth over-engineering -- I'd come up with something involving light sensors (a la a gate counter) mounted on the table legs, just above seat height. Throw in some something something Arduino or Raspberry Pi, and Bob's your uncle. I find myself more intimidated by the practicality of maintaining such a system (batteries, cord management etc) than about the practicality of this implementation, actually. -dre. On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Thomas Misilo <misi...@fit.edu> wrote: > Hi, > > I was wondering if anyone has been asked before to come up with a way > to record usage of tables. > > The ideal solution would be a web app, that we can create floor plans > with where all the tables/chairs are and select the "reporting time", > say 9PM at night. Go around the library and select all the > seats/tables/rooms that are currently being used/occupied for statistical > data. > > We would be wanting to go around probably multiple times a day. > > The current solution I have seen is a pen and paper task, and then > someone will have to manually put the data into a spreadsheet for analysis. > > Thanks! > > Tom >
