[Vanhackspace] Hardware for people/inventory tracking

[Joseph Lunderville]

Are they all the same weight? Can you be pretty sure that people will  
only check in/out one thing at a time? If either of those is true you  
could put the whole bin on a scale and watch the weight change, then  
have it beep annoyingly until whoever is moving the device scans it on  
a barcode reader... it seems to work okay for the self-checkout at  
Home Despot :)

On 23-Jul-10, at 12:37 AM, Gavin wrote:

> Cool, another idea, one I didn't remotely think of. Unfortunately I  
> don't think all the feasible for the final version. Right now due to  
> storage restrictions the phones are stored in plastic drawers inside  
> of the cabinet, so I'm not sure if there would be enough space for  
> cradles for each of them. But its worth looking into.
>
> As for tracking people, I was intending to base that on a barcode  
> reader (for the prototype it sounds like I can use a cuecat scanner)  
> that controls the lock to the cabinet.
>
> Thanks,
> Gavin
>
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Bob Cook <bob at bobandeileen.com>  
> wrote:
> Hi Gavin,
>
> The simplest thing you could make is a cradle for each item, with a  
> small switch inside each cradle. When the phone/gadget/etc. is in  
> the cradle it depresses the switch. When removed, the switch is  
> opened. This switch event can be recorded by the microcontroller of  
> your choice. This is likely cheaper and easier than implementing any  
> sort of wireless tracking beacon e.g. rfid. It doesn't really help  
> to track people though, but your description below made it somewhat  
> unclear whether that was an actual requirement.
>
> Hope that helps!
>
> Bob Cook
>
> On 2010-07-22, at 3:13 PM, Gavin wrote:
>
> > Hi Hackspace.
> >
> > Long time lurker, but kinda curious about feedback for an project.
> >
> > We have various small items (cellphones) that are tracked manually  
> here at work. Usually not a problem, but once in a while during  
> rushes, people grab an item, and forget to sign it out. So I was  
> trying to think of a nice system that could track a tagged item from  
> leaving the container, and signal an arduino or laptop on which  
> specific item it is.
> > I'm at a loss for what could be used relatively cheaply to track  
> items like that.
> > It doesn't need a lot of range, or to be tracked where it is, just  
> that its being removed from some sort of holding container.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Gavin
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