For the final project in the Gadgets, Sensors, and Human Activity class, I’v decided to build a system of motion-detecting nodes that communicate wirelessly with a central base station. The base station will feed that recorded data into the computer, and a visualization will be produced. I was inspired to do this because our CMU studio has an entrance screen that is rarely used. I imagine that this system could be implemented to let people quickly understand how much activity is going on in the studio the moment they walk in.

The electronics for the system are pretty simple. A base station sends out a radio request for information to the remote arduino, the remote arduino then responds with with what it has been recording over the previous second. The base station then goes to the next sensor. Finding out how the radio communication takes place will be a moderate challenge, but it has been well-covered before.

I think the bigger challenge will depend on how much fidelity I have time to make the system. The physical sensor could have a container printed using 3d printing, and the visualization itself could be very pretty. I probably won’t have time for the 3d printing. With three weeks, it’ll take time for the parts I’ve ordered, then put together, then tested. Then I could think about form-factor.