Inspiration
There's a lot of wasted time and personnel efficiency when half of the floor team is spending their day doing inventory of all the components they have. There should be an easier, affordable way of doing this...
What it does
We are using an induction based sensor to measure position. It behaves as a weight scale, but the same coil and circuit can be used to measure grams, all the way to hundreds of pounds with a high accuracy. All that needs to be added is springs depending on the weight being measured. All this information is being sent to a server for easier inventory control, this way there's no need for someone to walk around the whole warehouse counting parts or scanning codes. When inventory is low (<3 items), a notification is being sent to the user so they know they need to increase quantity.
How we built it
We took an LDC sensor, a step down rectangular coil, and a simple, low-cost circuit to register inductance changes (non-contact) when an object is placed on the device. We wrote a program that would create the inventory based on the sensor's information. This sensor will contain information as quantity, location, rack number, bin number, it can also be modified to please the customer.
Challenges we ran into
This method would work best with springs, we could not find any in this building so we had to improvise and use rubber bands to simulate the function of springs. Due to this, the values will fluctuate +1, nonetheless it is still very accurate.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
we made the whole thing work in less than 24hrs!
What we learned
Make sure we have all the materials needed in order to reduce improvisation
What's next for Induction based inventory tracker
Get all the components needed, springs, rack system, and be able to scale it to higher volumes. More research and data is needed before this can happen.
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