From November 14th to 16th I attended the MINT-EC Camp on the subject of “Smart Home” in Bottrop.
The camp started with a tour of the Brabus tuning workshop, which specializes in tuning Mercedes vehicles. Then about 15 participants were divided into small groups and each group received a target group of people.
The individual groups then have to consider for their respective target group how the everyday life of the person can be through Smart Home. Since my group was given an 82-year-old lady as a target group who was recently broken into, we looked at various smart home security systems. So, after a short introduction by the university’s trained specialists in programming the Arduino microcontroller, we built and programmed an alarm system. In addition, during the camp, we developed a door lock that can only be opened with a 4-digit code. In addition to these projects, we also built a lamp system that reacts to movement and switches on or off depending on the direction in which a person walks.
At the end of the camp, a competition was held to see which group had the best ideas and who implemented them best. In this competition, my group took 2nd place. Projects from the other groups were, for example, a system that waters a plant as soon as the soil falls below a certain level of moisture, or a child safety device that makes a certain cupboard accessible only to adults.
Overall, the camp was a lot of fun and very informative. I would recommend everyone to try this camp next year.
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