ESE 1110, Team 07, Quadet

Inspiration

Shhh. Quadet Please! Team 07’s noise warning system will be especially helpful to RA’s and sleepy students of rowdy halls in communal living like the Quad (we’re looking at you, Butcher)! As two residents of the Quadrangle, Penn's main freshman dorm, Shivi and Emma were inspired by late-night disruptions to their sleep to design a solution. Communal living can be difficult, but not with the Quadet, which utilizes a calibrated microphone, a warning display system, and integrated wifi communication with the RA’s phone. When the microphone detects volume above a decibel level deemed appropriate for quiet hours, the display installed in the hallway will warn students to quiet down. After an extended period of loud volume, our device will notify the RA with information about the location and time frame of the disruptive late-night noise. And a hush fell over the quad...

What it does

The Quadet is a device that monitors sound levels and connects to smartphones to keep students and RAs living in harmony. After one installation and calibration, the microphone will monitor sound levels. Every time the sound surpasses the level, it is one strike for the students, and the LCD shows a warning message. After five strikes, the RA is notified through the Blynk app on their phone and receives an email. Many components of the system can be customized to the RA and their preferences, like how many strikes the students get, the microphone's sensitivity, how the RA will receive a notification, and how long the time loop runs before strikes are "cleared."

How we built it

The main components of the Quadet are an Arduino Uno, an esp32 feather huzzah, a microphone with a built-in potentiometer, and a liquid crystal display.

Challenges we ran into

The most difficult part of this project was getting the notifications to send through the Blynk app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're especially proud of the notification and email features and our sleek design.

What we learned

We learned to always work on big projects like this step-by-step so that we can diagnose issues as they arise. We certainly weren't afraid to ask for help, and the Detkin team and ESE 1110 TAs were amazingly helpful. Of course, we learned a lot about the creative and engineering processes, especially how to be resourceful to learn new things as we went.