CourseHub

CourseHub logo
On the homepage, users select their desired course from the specific semester
An example of the form filled out
The resulting course page when the information from the previous image is submitted
When a lecture is selected, the recording comes up in a modal
Workflow

Inspiration

The traditional classroom has transformed with the advent of the Internet and cloud-based technologies. Now, it's easier than ever to access educational videos on virtually any topic. However, for college students, especially RPI students, it's difficult to view a specific lecture, whether they simply missed class or want to see what it is like for scheduling purposes.

What it does

CourseHub allows students to easily find and access lecture videos which are uploaded automatically to the Google Cloud. A Raspberry Pi is placed in each lecture hall and is set to record video at the start time of each corresponding lecture. After the lecture ends, the Pi uploads the video to the Google Cloud and deletes the video from its local storage. To view a video, the user:

Selects a semester and year
Enters the course code and number
Chooses their professor and lecture date

How we built it

Our team:

Used a webcam, Ubuntu, and OpenCV to simulate a Raspberry Pi automatically recording video
Implemented Google Cloud Storage Services to store the uploaded videos
Created a Flask application to access the stored videos
Designed a simple UI to find classes
Populated the application with sample classes and videos

Challenges we ran into

Interfacing with the provided Raspberry Pi without a micro-HDMI cable
Changing the authentication requirements of Google Cloud Storage to make stored videos publicly accessible
Storing very large and high-quality video files without compromising local storage
Processing video from the webcam as .mp4 instead of other data formats

Accomplishments that we're proud of/what we learned

Learning how to leverage Google Cloud Storage effectively
Implementing a dynamic website using the Flask micro-framework
Successful scheduling of Python scripts

What's next for CourseHub

We hope to integrate databases within the Flask application to store all RPI course data, use multiple Raspberry Pis to upload video from separate locations, and automate the embedding of these videos into the website. (And putting out a decked out merch line)

Built With

Submitted to

HackRPI 2019

Created by

Using OpenCV and a Raspberry Pi, I worked on automatically recording on a webcam at scheduled times and uploading the file to a Google Cloud storage server

Ashwin Chitoor
I worked on integrating the back end and front end of accessing the files from Google Cloud buckets and implementing it within the Flask application.

Saipranav Avula
I worked on the back end of creating buckets to allow videos to be automatically uploaded and accessed from the Google Cloud server.

Atharva Sathe
I worked on the frontend templates for the Flask app, as well as taking data from the backend to input it into these templates. Additionally, I deployed the app to Heroku.

Shardul Joshi