My research into Alias for the group project definitely inspired my for the Locker Buddy Alarm System. Alias, a parasitic system that alters the interaction between users and their smart devices by making it so the device is incapable of listening in on it’s users when not prompted led me to change my definition of interaction to include having a meaningful impact on at least one of the actors. In the case of Alias, it allowed smart device users to feel more comfortable in their own homes, without fear that their smart devices are listening to what they’re saying at all times and take advantage of that information. The meaningful impact it had on these users is massive, users were absolutely amazed, and also impressed by the side-effect of the parasitic device, it wouldn’t think you were talking to it and activate when having a conversation with another person. This led me to think of a device that would have a meaningful impact on students here at NYUSH. What immediately came to my mind was the great locker thief of 2015-16 that discouraged students from being comfortable using their lockers. Even with a locker with a lock, there was never a guarantee that your stuff would still be in your locker when you got out of class. In order to make students comfortable once again, I came up with the Locker Buddy Alarm System. To begin, I had to think what the best way to go about this would be. With some experience with Infrared Sensors from the Sensors Recitation, I decided to stick with that. After doing some digging, I came across this project that made an alarm with IR sensors. To add on and make a better alarm for the system, I found the code for a siren sound here. I had to do some adjusting to the code, as the original project used two IR sensors and triggered whenever the values were not the same, and I used one sensor that triggered whenever the value was larger than the distance of the locker door being closed.
There were several routes I could have taken for how the user would interact with the device to deactivate it, yet, due to time restraints, I went with a hidden button. During user testing, I was having massive problems with buzzer, as the siren code was broken, the Arduino was struggling to relay the deactivation code from the button to the alarm. On top of that, I did not have the fabrication done at this point, so it was just students interacting with a wired mess and too much was left to imagination. Ideally, I would have like to use a fake book, to help it blend in with the nature of a locker at a school. this would make it significantly harder for a thief to be able to find and destroy the alarm system. Another, more secure option, would be to use a metal that was painted the same color as its intended locker of residence.
During the production phase, I knew I needed the wiring for the button to be fairly long, this would give users the ability to easily, and discretely, hide the button anywhere within their locker. I also wanted the other components, the buzzer and IR sensor, to be connected with short wires, in order to make the encasing small enough to not take up too much space in the locker. Due to the coding problems, after user testing, I met with Tristan for close to an hour, working together to debug my code and ensure that the deactivation code would allow for the button to communicate properly with the buzzer. Also, a great tip I received was to change it so the alarm did not go off immediately after opening the locker, which resulted in my adding a delay to the IR sensor’s communication with the buzzer.
My goal was to make students feel more secure about the goods within their locker. I believe I did that to an extent, but the deactivation process (the hidden button) was a simple process that could found with some effort. If I had more time, there are so many ways I could improve my Locker Buddy Alarm System. To begin, I would have fabricated a proper encasing for the device. I would also make a more complex deactivation system, such as using multiple buttons and requiring them to be pushed in a certain order in order to deactivate the alarm system. A great idea that was given during my presentation was that I could add a camera and have it take a picture every time someone opens the locker (similar to many android phones that use facial recognition when unlocking the phone). I could also set up the system to send a message to Public Safety and notify them that a locker has an intruder. The biggest thing I learned is to be more creative with my thinking. I tend to be a very straight forward thinker, and I am not very creative, which results in fairly straight forward projects. Also, I should give more time for developing my projects.