In this project, we created a sensor that tracks the occupancy, temperature, CO2 levels, ETVOC, and humidity of a dining hall.

The idea for this project came to me and my team through personal reflection. I personally enjoyed going to the dining hall at different times based on two variables related to the number of people there. Sometimes, a lot of people meant the food was generally fresher, which was nice. On other days, it was preferable to eat in a quiet place.

Although tools like Google Popular Times exist, they have multiple systematic issues. Firstly, Google gauges the number of people at a location based on how many people with Google accounts and tracking enabled are present. Obviously, this method's accuracy is compromised since not everyone allows Google to track them. We needed to find a way to determine the number of people more accurately without jeopardizing user privacy. To further improve our product, we decided to monitor additional environmental metrics such as temperature, humidity, equivalent CO2, and volatile organic compounds.

The prototype was created on TinkerCad. Before buying the materials for our project, we wanted to ensure it was feasible. Within our TinkerCad schematic, we used a PIR sensor to track occupancy. The idea was to place a sensor at the entrance and another at the exit of the dining hall. When someone entered, a counter within our code would increment, and when someone left, it would decrement.

The app was created through the development platform Blynk. I designed the layout of the app and chose the data streams through the creation of virtual pins. Custom code for my device was then uploaded onto the Arduino to connect my various sensors to the appropriate data streams. Once this was completed the app would display occupancy, temperature in Fahrenheit, a live chart of occupancy, ECO2, Humidity and ETVOC.