OkCool

Okcool

Theme:

Circular Economy & Sustainable Living

Problem Statement:

Inefficient use of air conditioning system.

Inspiration "A typical office in Singapore expends 60 per cent of its energy on cooling, according to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA)." We noticed that air cons in lecture theatres are controlled centrally. The control of temperature is limited by the central system and does not offer the flexibility to adjust it in each venue. This provides more convenient and uniform control from one location. However, this leads to an unnecessary waste of energy, especially when there are less or no people in the venues.

Solution To solve this, we introduce OkCool - Our real-time temperature regulating system. It collects the feedback from people sitting at different zones within the venue. With this feedback, our system is able to maintain a more adjustable temperature of the venue under real-time monitoring, thus seemingly providing a comfortable learning environment, while using energy more efficiently.

Method Firstly, we have created our very own Telegram Bot, called Okc00l_bot, that allows users at the venue to submit their feedback easily. Our Bot listens to all the responses and stores them in our cloud database on Firebase. At the same time, our temperature sensor reads the temperature of the venue and sends it to Firebase as well. The backend system then determine the most suitable temperature to be set in the room.

Our Bot asks the following questions to the users:

Venue - select the venue name, eg. LT1, LT2, LT3, etc.
Zone - state which part of the venue are the users sitting at, eg. 1/2/3/4…
Feel - indicate what the person is feeling right now, eg. Hot/Cold

Ultimately, our system is able to automatically adjust the individual temperatures of each air con units installed at different parts of the venue.

Technologies ESP32, NODEJs, Firebase, Telegram Bot

Key Challenges Limited hardware devices

camera to count the number of people currently at the venue Convincing to the larger audience about the effectiveness of this implementation. -people abuse the system by continuously submitting their feedback to our Telegram Bot. -people without Telegram

Scaling Integrate multiple temperature sensors in different zones at the venue, so as to display a more accurate average temperature of the venue. Implement this system to other types of venues such as Multi purpose halls, hospital wards, offices, etc.