The Creative Juices Start to Flow (week 3)

After a rather intensive week of presentations, gossip and group work it looks as though a new league of villains has emerged… Lochan , Anton, Sam H, Sam M and myself have banded together and so a new reign of terror has begun. Muhahahahahahahahaaaaaa *cough*
You get the idea.

Initially all the ideas we seemed to come up with were very extravagant, normally revolving around energy flow controlled by chairs, kitchen appliances and utensils that create strobe effects, hydraulics and even implanting self containing ID microchips under peoples skin in order to replace the need for key cards, house keys, car keys and the like… As you can see, these ideas aren’t exactly under the theme of sustainable technology and are far form the budget that a team of students can muster.

After a brief group meeting, it was decided that we should all go forth and explore some ideas on our own before meeting up once more for a debrief. This approach worked really well, and an idea was selected from amongst the babble.

The idea selected was none other then the “Intelligent Mailbox”. Ok the name is lacking at the moment… work in progress don’t forget. Basically the idea came forth from the age old problem of checking an empty mailbox. What if your mailbox could tell you that it contains a letter? The potential with this idea became apparent through discussion.

Right, a simple deconstruction is needed at this point as I sense a lot of you are some-what lost.

The Intelligent Mailbox

Tech used:
- small solar panels (possibly obtained from calculators)
- a communicative device (ie: pager, mobile phone)
- Light Emitting Diodes (as a visual alert system but not seen in this prototype design)
- Sensors (this part is still in the brainstorming process. Do we use motion, IR or pressure etc)
- Mail box (preferably hand built by us so that it is exactly as we want it!)

How it works:
- As mail is dropped into the box through the front slot, a sort of sensor picks up on it.
- The communicative device is then alerted and a message is sent out to the owner of the box.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well yes and no. the entire system, first and foremost, is powered by a collection of solar cells attached to the top of the box itself. The sensors may be placed either side of the mail slot on the inside of the box (if motion) or on the floor/ceiling of the box if infra red. The motion was basically ruled out in group discussion as anything could set off, whether it is a stray leaf blowing into the box by shear fluke or even a wandering and oh-so-curious ladybeetle dancing across the sensor unit. IR was discussed as a safer bet. The receiver for the sensor would bounce a signal off an opposing reflective surface. This means that if an envelope is covering the surface, the signal is broken and the communicative device will be alerted.

Now as stated above, the communicative device may take on the form of a mobile phone or a pager unit. In terms of the phone, it will need to have its function altered slightly. When the sensor is tripped by incoming mail, the device is alerted and sends out a pre-programmed message to a desired, external mobile phone. The owner receives the message and instantly knows that they have mail waiting for them.

Basically this takes the idea of the online E-mail inbox and moves it into the physical world.

We, as a group have already expanded on the idea slightly in terms of the power source. In case of overcast weather, the solar power may cut out. That is how the idea of rechargeable batteries has come into play. If the sun cuts out (that sounds odd), the batteries will cut in. Now, in order to save power, a timer system can be implemented that will kick start the sensors at pre-designated times. This means that in the long run, very little power is required to run a rather useful system.


Applications:

Apart from domestic use, the Intelligent Mailbox (referred to as the IntellBox from now on) has potential to be used on a business level. For example, say the device was implemented into the mail runs of Australia Post. Each postbox could be fitted with the IntellBox system in a refined form. An aggregated feed of information could be taken from groups of post boxes within a certain area (eg: all the boxes from a particular city block) and used to alert postmen to the size of the loads they are to pick up. If nothing is in a certain box, fuel and time would be saved as the trip to that particular box could be avoided.


A functional prototype of the IntellBox, in my opinion, is more then achievable in the time that we have. If we do manage to get it working ahead of time, then we can concentrate on adding more features and improving on the existing concept.
Right, well that is roughly where the idea stands at this point in time. Below I have included some sketches of the IntellBox system.




Obviously this concept needs some refinement. The updates will be posted as they happen.