Table 16

Inspiration

We wanted to learn more about IoT and its applications to the real world.

What it does

Gathers realtime location data of people at a large event. Allows event hosts to view a heat map of current and past foot traffic. Hosts can then use this data to:

• Determine and deal with high traffic spots and chokepoints
• Find out which stages or areas of the event were popular/unpopular at what times
• Use this data for future event planning:
  • hire artists that attracted large crowds
  • reduce risk by dealing with chokepoints in the future

How we built it

• Used IBM Watson IoT platform to gather data from simulated devices which was then stored in a Cloudant NoSQL database.
• Created a Cloud Foundry app using Node-RED and Google Maps API to serve up a visualization to users

Challenges we ran into

• Low memory limitations on free instances of bluemix led to crashes
• Integrating a third party api (Google Maps) into the Node-RED ecosystem.
• Correctly handling websocket messages
• Inconsistent real time arrival of data so maps don't have an equal number of points
• Lack of real world test data

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Figuring out how to use Bluemix applications and services in synergy

What we learned

• Google Maps API
• Node-Red
• Bluemix

What's next for Crowd Track

• Optimize collection, storage, and retrieval of data to be able to handle thousands of devices concurrently
• Figure out how to collect data from actual devices that have an event app installed
• Display data points on an event map instead of on a bird's eye view of Earth
• Offer Crowd Track as a service and be able to handle multiple clients and events

Built With

• bluemix
• cloudant
• google-maps
• ibm-watson
• iot
• node-red