Published March 31, 2016 © GPL3+

Eventcheck

Tired of losing our friends at festivals and having to spend precious time searching them? Here's our solution!

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Things used in this project

Hardware components

AllThingsTalk IOTOPIA Rapid Development kit

Story

Situation

You’re on a festival or a gig and you’re looking for your friend who’s also there but you ran out of phone credit/free messages and you don’t know wether or not your friend will answer and how long they’ll stay where they were when they sent you. This is a common recurring problem in areas where a great number of people are present and finding your friends can really be tiresome. We’ve come up with an idea that without a hassle gives you a simple and detailed overview of the location of the event and by using this application you can easily find back your friends without having to send 10 messages to that one friend who has been waiting at the (wrong) bar for over half an hour.

Enter Eventcheck.

But what is Eventcheck?

Eventcheck at its core works as a pinpoint-system.

By marking a certain waypoint on your mobile phone by manually marking these Beacons (waypoints) or by ‘checking into them’ by scanning with NFC this will be marked on your virtual map at the same point that represents its real-life counterpart.

A Beacon is a waypoint visible from many viewing angles by being at a higher point like on top of a pole or high up on the wall of a bar or stage. This Beacon will be equipped with an NFC chip which sends any necessary data to your phone which translates it into the point on your map together with a name displayed beside it and people who you have shared your location with can then see this on their Eventcheck. This means the beacon sends a number which, by using the corresponding event’s code, will take this as input and give the necessary info for your friends as output, via an internet connection so that any friend connected to the internet will be able to view each other’s location. The easiest way this would go about is by simply creating an Eventcheck-account that will remember your friends for every event that you go to. These friends will be marked with their name next to the point they’re located at together with a short 5-word status to say what they are doing and notify others if they’re about to leave their current location.

In places with bigger audiences like with the main stage most of the time or after nightfall, multiple points on this location can be very helpful to be more precise.

Further Use

When checking into certain locations such as a festival’s camping the same system as prior applies, only there would be no beacons for each tent individually but rather different compartments divided into even smaller squares on your map where your location can be manually chosen by yourself. Eventcheck would also not be only limited to only festivals and shows but also town festivals, park festivals, grand openings and such. With this simple application that only requires a one-time registration and a single download you should never have to worry about wasting time on finding your friends and family and you can spend more time having a good time with them at these events.

Foto's

Code

Eventcheck

/*
  Web client

 This sketch connects to a website through a GSM shield. Specifically,
 this example downloads the URL "http://www.arduino.cc/asciilogo.txt" and
 prints it to the Serial monitor.

 Circuit:
 * GSM shield attached to an Arduino
 * SIM card with a data plan

 created 8 Mar 2012
 by Tom Igoe

 http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/GSMExamplesWebClient

 */

// libraries
#include <GSM.h>

// PIN Number
#define PINNUMBER ""

// APN data
#define GPRS_APN       "GPRS_APN" // replace your GPRS APN
#define GPRS_LOGIN     "login"    // replace with your GPRS login
#define GPRS_PASSWORD  "password" // replace with your GPRS password

// initialize the library instance
GSMClient client;
GPRS gprs;
GSM gsmAccess;

// URL, path & port (for example: arduino.cc)
char server[] = "arduino.cc";
char path[] = "/asciilogo.txt";
int port = 80; // port 80 is the default for HTTP

void setup() {
  // initialize serial communications and wait for port to open:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  while (!Serial) {
    ; // wait for serial port to connect. Needed for native USB port only
  }

  Serial.println("Starting Arduino web client.");
  // connection state
  boolean notConnected = true;

  // After starting the modem with GSM.begin()
  // attach the shield to the GPRS network with the APN, login and password
  while (notConnected) {
    if ((gsmAccess.begin(PINNUMBER) == GSM_READY) &
        (gprs.attachGPRS(GPRS_APN, GPRS_LOGIN, GPRS_PASSWORD) == GPRS_READY)) {
      notConnected = false;
    } else {
      Serial.println("Not connected");
      delay(1000);
    }
  }

  Serial.println("connecting...");

  // if you get a connection, report back via serial:
  if (client.connect(server, port)) {
    Serial.println("connected");
    // Make a HTTP request:
    client.print("GET ");
    client.print(path);
    client.println(" HTTP/1.1");
    client.print("Host: ");
    client.println(server);
    client.println("Connection: close");
    client.println();
  } else {
    // if you didn't get a connection to the server:
    Serial.println("connection failed");
  }
}

void loop() {
  // if there are incoming bytes available
  // from the server, read them and print them:
  if (client.available()) {
    char c = client.read();
    Serial.print(c);
  }

  // if the server's disconnected, stop the client:
  if (!client.available() && !client.connected()) {
    Serial.println();
    Serial.println("disconnecting.");
    client.stop();

    // do nothing forevermore:
    for (;;)
      ;
  }
}

Credits

Arne Caluwe

2 projects • 4 followers

Eventcheck

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Story

Schematics

storyboard(I)

storyboard(II)

Code

Eventcheck

Credits

Arne Caluwe

Comments

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Eventcheck

Eventcheck

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Story

Schematics

storyboard(I)

storyboard(II)

Code

Eventcheck

Credits

Arne Caluwe

Comments

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