campus heating automation

Inspiration

What it does

A pair of IR break-beams on either side of the door detect when people enter and exit a room. This will trigger the heater to activate and heat up the room when there are people inside, then deactivate the heater where there are no people inside. The system will keep track of the number of people entering and exiting the room to make sure the system is only running when people are inside the room.

How we built it

A pair of IR break-beams are connected to an Arduino. An LED reveals the occupancy status (whether there are or aren't people inside the room). The logic behind the machine was built with C and ensures there are no false entries/exits.

Challenges we ran into

A lack of materials to build this project was a major disadvantage (obviously). We also ran into issues with logic in terms of determining whether a person entered or exited the room.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Ultimately resolved previously mentioned challenges.

What we learned

Integration of hardware and software to build an automated heating system.

What's next for campus heating automation

Fixing bugs (which currently exist in modern implementations of this model) such as being able to detect the number of occupants in large groups, connecting the machine to a temperature sensor to stop heating when the desired temperature has been reached.

Built With

• arduino-c