[Vanhackspace] Hardware for people/inventory tracking

[Gavin]

MM, don't think they are. Was trying to avoid as much of the manual process
as possible.
A slightly better arrangement would be:

Scan barcode for userid
Door Unlocks
User grabs phone
Scans phone, light blinks green (indicate successful scan)
User logs out by closing door

But the rfid (and cradle) solutions eliminate the "forgetting to scan the
phone"

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 12:47 AM, Joseph Lunderville <
jlunder at catfish.dhs.org> wrote:

> 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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>> >
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