We are within a year of completing a rather large, new school campus: about 25 total acres and 950K sq ft of indoor space. It’s about the size of a large shopping mall. I wanted to do a student-led project to build a simple navigation app that would point out different buildings, locations, etc. relative to the user’s current location. I imagine it would be similar to helping shoppers find up to 20 different stores in a big shopping mall. This would be more on the level of a hackathon than a finished, professional project.
Is this a realistic project? Is there a “starter kit” that I can use? Can it be done on the “cheap”? Someone please point me in the right direction.
Your project is absolutely realistic and we can help you with its realization. The only thing is to create it from scratch would not be cheap. Therefore, I suggest that we discuss a possibility an existing solution under your brand. We have done an InNav app for our client. You can check it on our Portfolio https://itechcraft.com/portfolio/smart-navigation-systems or go to Apple Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/innav/id998260455?mt=8. It is also available on Google Play Market.
I can share more details via email or Skype chat. Just let me know about your interest.
But the point of the app is to give the HS kids an exciting project to work on. The school doesn’t actually need a navi app for the new school. So a simple MVP is more than acceptable. I think the parents would like a student project better as well…
What I’m hoping to do is to organize a HS school project where I can lead the students to build a simple Estimote/beacon app to help navigate the new campus.
What I’m looking for are suggestions on how to scope the project so that it can be built mostly by HS kids. I would also like to know which beacon(s) and how many I need to accomplish something basic but useful.
Can I just stick a beacon at each key intersection and then highlight nearby locations on a graphical map when users are in range?
It’s not clear to me how many beacons I need to do something useful. Do I have to build a mesh, or can I get buy with fewer? Any suggestions?
Hey Michael, thanks for reaching out! … and don’t mind the spam
This is totally a realistic project, and yes, there are some options for “on the cheap”. And hey, I’m inspired by you getting the students involved!
You can start with a UWB kit for prototyping a room in minutes with Automapping technology.
It’s really built for smaller rooms, so it depends what your hackathon entails. Are you going to be actually hacking a shopping mall, or just building a POC in one room with the students?
Thanks for responding. The ultimate goal is to have the students produce something their parents can be proud of (so the hurdle isn’t that high ) when the new campus opens a year from now. I am proposing a “hackathon” spread out over the 10-12 weeks of an afterschool activity to develop a POC or MVP. This can be developed for the current HS campus.
I need to develop a reasonable scope for this project and a budget for purchasing beacons. We can certainly start on a small-campus scale for the project, and scale up to the new, very-large campus (shopping mall scale) if the final result looks good. But I should be able to give the admin a budget for both the POC and a much larger deployment on the new campus.
However, in either case I think the scale of our project is building-scale, and not room-scale. How does that change your suggestion?
I think you’ll end up needing some bulk beacons ultimately if you’re setting up a school… bulk bags are sold in quantities of 25 beacons. And, you’ll likely want to work with our Indoor Location technology if you’re looking for navigation features. (Hint: check out the use case IRL here, I wrote it myself) http://blog.estimote.com/post/160744699135/ca-rezzonico-estimote-indoor-location-operating
You should probably speak to one of our Sales guys about this to make sure you know all of the tools you need at a reasonable budget.
I’m going to guess by your use of the word “square feet” that you’re in the States. If that’s the case, email my good friend Ben: ben.park@estimote.com . He’s very technically aware, a Sales rep, and can give you a full rundown.
He’ll chat with you about what sort of a price and solution you’re looking at here!
In general, we do recommend prototyping with 1 room, 1 or 2 devkits first to be sure you know what you’re signing up for. Just a heads up!
