Ideas Groups

Sharing My Interest, Ideas for Group Projects

• <Your Name>; <Liste of things you find interesting>
  • <Project Idea1>
  • <Project Idea2>
  • <Project Idea3>
  • ...
• Albrecht Schmidt (example): using environmental sensors (e.g. gas, temperature, humidity) and creating smell output
  • connecting coffee cup usage (one side) to coffee smell output (other side)
  • measuring temperature in one place and create a temperature display on the other side
  • ...
• Manuela Eska:
  • Cookie jar connected with a weight sensor (one side), display etc. (other side) that indicates about the filling, so that the next cookies can be prepared when the tin is nearly empty and can be refilled in time
  • Detection of the baby's movements during the night (one side) so that lullabies can be played (other side) so that the baby may not wake up
  • ...
• Sigrid Klinger:
  • Measuring wind direction and force (vane + anemometer) outside at one place and transfer the data to two analog scales at another place
    • Requirements for the Group Project (according to the first email):
      • At least two connected physical objects: Wind and two scales
      • At least 2 or more sensors: A light barrier sensor and magnetic sensors
      • At least 2 or more actuators: A servo for each scale to move the arrow indicating the measurements
      • One sensors has to be “invented”:
        • Force Sensor: Self-build anemometer with e.g. plastic spoons as hemispherical cups connected to a pipe with a pinhole. A light barrier sensor can then measure the rotation speed by counting the rotations every time the pinhole passes through the barrier.
        • Direction sensor: Self-build wind vane: Vane with a magnet. Magnet sensors arranged in a circle can then measure how far away the magnet is. With this the direction can be calculated.

• Leon Dönch:
  • A symmetrical "connect four" (Vier gewinnt) game for two flats, whose squares lights up by pressing. Every time the other player makes a move, a sound is played.
  • Showing if your cat is outside or inside the house by detecting the flap direction of the cat flap. When it is outside, a lasercutted cat moves out of its "house" and starts walking.
  • Same idea as the cat flap, but detecting if a new letter has arrived in your post box and showing this with an LED animation similar to those bar signs
• Wang:
  • greenhouse monitoring & watering system: connecting a mini plastic greenhouse indoor and a real one in the garden or wherever.

In the real greenhouse: soil moisture, and other environmental variables (e.g. temp., humidity) are monitored. When the soil moisture level is below the benchmark, a valve connecting to a water source will open.

In the mock greenhouse: small plastic plants reflect the soil moisture level outside. A display shows all other environmental information.

HW: soil moisture sensor, Tsl2561, Bme280, water shutoff valve, filament, etc.

• Philipp Greiner:
  • plant watering monitor (so a friend knows when to come over to water your plants when you're not at home for some time): Measure moisture of plants (one side), if it's to dry -> activate signal "water plants" (other side), the signal can be anything and does not necessarily have to be a text
  • ...

• Carmen Schanderl:
  • Similar Idea to Manuela Eska "Detection of the baby's movements during the night (one side) so that lullabies can be played (other side) so that the baby may not wake up":
    • Extended Babyphone: Sensors on the door and distance sensors. If the baby is crawling through the door and comes nearer to the stairs, an alarms gets louder on the Babyphone, maybe even with light alarm (red light in the livingroom getting intensive). Sensors for temperature, that you can regulate it.

• Sarah Delgado Rodriguez:
  • Indicator of how "busy" someone is in the office --> firth object on the office door is an indicator (I thought of a clock-like approach, but I am open for other ideas), second object is on the desktop and used to (passively) measure + (actively) change the indicator

• Andreas Ellwanger, Andreas Griesbeck, Aline Neumann, Maximilian Rauh: light-control (working title)
  • Summary: A lamp controlled over WiFi by a cube. The cube has a colour sensor on its bottom. The sensor measures the colour of the surface the cube is sitting on. Thus the cube can control the colour of the lamp remotely. Furthermore, the cube has an acceleration sensor which senses if the cube is rotated clock or anti-clockwise to dim the light intensity of the lamp accordingly. A button allows saving a colour as default. The lamp has RGB light outputs as well as speakers and motors. The motors control panels which control how much light is emitted by the lamp.
  • At least two connected physical objects (can be more): cube controller (colour sensor on the bottom which changes the colour of the lamp to colour of the surface the cube is sitting on, acceleration sensor to dim the light intensity if the cube is rotated ), the lamp has multi-colour light sources, option to emit sound, control light intensity with motors which move panels)
  • At least one object has to have two or more sensors: colour-sensor, acceleration sensor, button
  • At least one object has to have two or more actuators: RGB-led, motors, sound
  • Object can be different (e.g. dog toy and ball on the user’s table) or symmetric (e.g. two chairs): objects are asymmetric. cube controller and the lamp are connected via WiFi
  • One sensor has to be “invented” (there will be a tutorial for this): DIY colour sensor
  • The objects need to communicate over the internet: lamp and cube are connected via WiFi

• Michael Hufnagel:
  • Competitive desk cleaning: Make a two dimensional array of self invented pressure sensors and place it on your work desk do the same for the people you are competing with. Everything you bring to your work desk e.g. documents, tea cup water bottle. Has to be placed on the array. Set a time limit for the competition e.g. one week. The score is calculated after the time limit. Each day the amount of occupied pressure sensors is saved and at the end averaged over the time limit(e.g. 7 days time limit; day 1 = 2 occupied, day 2 = 3 occupied...; score = sum days/7 ). Show the current score (how many pressure sensors are occupied) on a display e.g. a small oled screen. The winner (person with lowest score) gets a reward (that was set at the start of the competition) e.g. a free free meal and the loser gets a punishment e.g. has to pay.

• Jennifer Herner:
  • Tangible Kanban Board: Every team member (e.g IT department) in the workplace gets a Kanban board (columns with To-Do; In-Progress; DONE) which he/she can put on their office table. Employees create To-Dos for themselves and stick them with a weighted magnet - which indicates the self assessed difficulty level - to the board. As soon as they start working on a task they can put it in "In-Progress" and then in "DONE". If the card is placed in the "DONE" state, a sensor will recognize this (weight/difficulty level + how many are attached)and sends this information to the server. An LED display or something similar receives this information from each employee and e.g. reveals some pixel on the screen (the more difficult the task was, the more pixel get revealed) to e.g uncover an art piece. GOAL of this idea: Increase motivation and visualize productivity of team/department. They might also see how other teams/departments are performing during the day (aka uncovering some pixels) to include competitiveness ;)!
  • School Route tracker for children: Children often need to walk to school by themselves (without parental accompaniment). Parents are often concerned if their children arrive at school safely because they don't have mobile phones yet. Place sensors along different/common locations children need to pass when walking to school. As soon as they arrive at one of those points, they e.g connect a wrist-band to the sensor (over RFID/NFC) -> this information gets passed to an interface/display their parents can see in realtime and are therefore assured that their child arrived safely at school or back home (after school).

Group Projects

• <group project idea>; <Names who are interested>
• cat flap; Leon Dönch, Manuela Eska
• light-control; Andreas Ellwanger, Andreas Griesbeck, Aline Neumann, Maximilian Rauh (4/4)