Announcing the ODTUG GeekAThon 2016 Winners!

2017 Geekathon AT.jpg

Every day we are seeing more and more new and existing technologies revolutionize every industry as more devices become connected to the Internet. Most commonly known as smart devices or otherwise called IoT, the Internet of things has become one of the fastest-growing markets in technology. From connected vehicles, home appliances, wearable fitness devices that track our activities, and tracking devices to detect our location, IoT technology is fast becoming a part of everyday life. At Kscope16, each attendee received a beacon attached to the back of their badge, and ODTUG used this new technology to count session and conference attendance as well as identify exhibit hall hot spots throughout the week. These beacons used a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology that sent signals to receivers located in the session rooms and exhibit hall.

In the spirit of innovation and sheer geek curiosity, we decided to repurpose these beacons through a new challenge: ODTUG's first annual GeekAThon! The challenge was simple: Use at least one beacon and its Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signal to solve any problem in a meaningful way be it personal, business, environment, or otherwise. Three winners would be chosen by a panel of judges based on a number of criteria ranging from creativity and innovation to purpose and documentation. The judges were excited to see everyone's enthusiasm. Today, we are proud to announce that three winners have been chosen! Congratulations to all of the winners! 

First Place Winner: Team Texas Heat - BLE Beacon Gate Opener

In first place comes Christoph Alexander Ruepprich, a.k.a Rocket, and his son Christoph Martin Ruepprich of Team Texas Heat. Christoph combined his beacon with Raspberry Pi technology to create a location-based geofence near his property that would open his driveway gate as he approached his house. In short, Christoph pulls into his driveway like a boss.

Description: 

"The BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon from the Kscope 16 conference badge, located inside a car, is used to automatically open a driveway swing gate. A battery powered Raspberry Pi 2B running Node.js is used to detect the beacon’s bluetooth signal as the car passes by. When the signal is detected, the Node.js program checks the identity of the beacon signal. If it matches the Kscope 16 beacon’s identity, a signal is sent to a port on the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. This pin, along with the 5.5 volt power and ground, is
connected to a relay switch. The other side of the relay switch is connected to the momentary switch of the swing gate opener (the same as a garage door opener) remote control. When the relay is switched on, the circuit of the gate opener remote switch is closed, simulating the remote’s button press, and the swing gate moves."
Here is a video that Christoph made documenting his process. Want to fork a copy of his code? Want to know where he got the digital ingredients for this techfully masterful recipe? He included that in his documentation as well. Click here to view a copy!

 

Second Place Winner: Team C2 Consulting - BMusic iOS App

Coming in second place is Team C2 Consulting. Members created the BMusic iOS app. The team combined beacon and iOS technology to play music when it identifies a beacon within its proximity. 

Contributors:

  • Neelesh Shah
  • Luke Xing
  • Amory Julian
  • Anton Nielsen
  • Rich Soule
  • Hayden Hudson

Description:

"The team at C2 Consulting is submitting ‘BMusic’ to the ODTUG 2016 GeekAThon. BMusic is an iOS app that plays music note(s) when it identifes a beacon in its proximity. We plan to showcase this functionality at the 2017 ODTUG conference – conference attendees will be amused to learn that approaching the C2 Consulting booth will trigger music note(s) to play.
Here is a video demonstration of Team C2's BMusic app. Click here to view their documentation and learn how they went about creating the concept for BMusic. 

Third Place Winner: Team Father and Son - BlindDate

Team Father and Son consists of Dick Dral and his 19-year-old son Michiel, who is an aspiring but experienced programmer. Together, their concept combined beacon and GPS technology to create 'BlindDate,' an app that connects people in the real world who want to meet and talk based on a number of demographic, geographic, and technographic cirteria such as age, interests, gender, and more. 

Description:

"Finding someone to talk to about a subject you both are interested in. The pairing is purely on subject, location, and language. Both partners are directed toward a meeting point using GPS navigation. The last tens of meters of the navigation will be done using the iBeacon because GPS is very inaccurate at short distances. Imagine you are in town on your own and you would like to meet and talk to somebody. There are many people around you and sure, some of them are interested in the same subjects as you are. But how do you know who and where they are? You cannot see their thoughts. Here is where BlindDate (BD) comes to the rescue. People can create a profile on BD, registering age, gender, spoken languages, and subjects of interest. All users are provided with an iBeacon. Based on profiles of registered users, BD supplies you with a list of people who are in walking distance, speak your language, and share one or more interests. To avoid prejudices, no picture is shown. After starting the app, you can chose a subject you would like to talk about. If there is another user nearby interested in the same subject, then BD picks a meeting point and both users get a map with directions to the meeting point. The user that arrives at the meeting point first will locate no beacon. So he or she just sits down at the meeting point. When the other user arrives at the meeting point, he gets directions to locate his partner in the form of a sort of compass indicating direction and distance. A special iBeacon locator algortihm is used to determine the location of the iBeacon."

Watch the video below for a demonstration of how their concept would work. Click here for their complete documentation to learn how they came up with their idea. 

Once again, the GeekAThon judges and everyone at ODTUG congratulate all of the winners for their hard work!

- ODTUG Marketing Team 

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