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CEID

Work at Yale's Center for Engineering Innovation and Design

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Capacity monitoring system

The CEID's reopening for the Fall 2020 semester presented many challenges. We were fresh into the COVID-19 pandemic. One challenge was enforcing capacity limits as per university and state health guidelines. I found an old card reader, and repurposed it to build a real-time capacity monitoring system.

The card reader is hooked up to a Raspberry Pi. A third-party Python library reads the interfaces with the proprietary reader to retrieve a university card's unique identifier. That identifier is all that we need to build a entry/exit log. The identifier is stored in Cloud Firestore via a Cloud Function. A React app subscribes to changes in the store and updates the display in real-time.

In addition to closing when capacity is reached, the signage is also programmed to close when a work window concludes (the schedule is created with Luxon). Lastly, an admin panel provides details for all members who have swiped into the space. At the end of each work window, an admin can clear the log to get ready for the next window.

Graphic design

I've designed a number of materials for CEID workshops, events and signage.