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Post by Admin on Dec 18, 2014 16:22:35 GMT
So - the concept for this event is that we create a mini supermarket with shelves, "produce" and a checkout, and then people who want to have a go get a 30 second "dash" to put everything in their basket that they want to take into the survival shelter with them. Then, they go to the check out, scan bar codes on the produce and then receive a receipt which is in fact their "LIFETIME GUARANTEE" and by that, it means it tells them exactly how long they will survive in the shelter if they only have the contents of their basket to live on (which, if they have forgotten water, for example, wont be very long!" The receipt will also give educational, informative information on survival and nutrition that they can take away with them. I know I can purchase scanners and a till receipt printer for about a hundred quid but I have no idea of the digital-cody jiggery pokery you have to do between one and the other to get it to print out the lifetime guarantee that we want it to.......so where do we start?!  NB we can simplify this content if necessary, I wasn't planning on having hugely complicated algorithms to work it out, just fairly basic principles |
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Post by cejones on Dec 21, 2014 13:09:46 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jan 5, 2015 12:27:37 GMT
Thanks for this info Catherine. If we go ahead and bought these pieces of hardware, would you be able to help us get the programming right? I can certainly, either myself or in conjunctions with Holly Rogers and or Anisha Tailor and perhaps some other colleagues of theirs from the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Physiological Society get all the information we need to make the algorithms work. My colleague Bogdan Maran is going to be taking the lead on producing this event in terms of getting the set and equipment together but he knows as much programming as I do ;-) Many thanks! Lindsay |
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Post by bogdan on Jan 5, 2015 14:47:44 GMT
Hi Catherine, A few (random) ideas I will try to sort them out and make a proper list ASAP: How many products do we put in? (can work with sponsors.. saynsbury’s?) We don’t need to put the actual products in the aisles, but use cards with barcodes. This will ensure that we need less space, can be easily replaceable if they are damaged, and can have more of the same item. We can use one of the products (e.g. flower, eggs, beans etc) to exemplify and have a bunch of cards with the barcode in front of them, with small carry bags/toy trolleys to put them in. We should also limit the amount of stuff they get, one/maybe 2 per item. The nutritional info should be easy to add to the description of each item. and print it on the receipt. We can have the time (days/month/minutes) you can survive with the individual items in the price column, and then use something similar with the concept “buy one get second for free” or ‘how much you saved’ to combine items and create relationships between them. This will give us a nice little receipt with a number of days you can survive. If we can program something a little bit more complicated, we can add a message at the end with different messages depending on the stuff they bought and how they can be improved. I was thinking of using a Pi computer to do this (powered by a bicycle so they can do some workout as well  , as we can find an enthusiast programer to help us, and plus it adds to the whole ‘narrative’ of the festival. The trick part is to create the database and the relationship between the items. Technical wise we need: a receipt printer: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/58mm-USB-5890-ESC-POS-Line-Thermal-Dot-Receipt-Printer-Set-With-Paper-Roll-/161045908141a bar scanner: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Automatic-Barcode-Scanner-portable-handheld-USB-Laser-Scan-Bar-Code-Reader-UK-/171405897708?pt=UK_BOI_Retail_Shop_Fitting_POS_Equipment_ET&hash=item27e8966feca code bar printer: any printer will do, and we print them on slightly thicker paper and use the less expensive invention called scissors to trim them to the desired size. and a device in the middle - unfortunately a pc is what usually works with the cheap bar scanners. I will look today into the whole Pi vs Mac vs PC thing. I have a read about using the iPad and found a few options (Vend Pos is the best so far) and will see how this works. It would be nice if we could make an online thing to add to the experience. Maybe even a 2d barcode they can scan and use it to share the event and the receipt. Theoretically if we create the receipt on a computer we can export it online as a JPG and they can find it and share it. Or we can share it on Facebook and they can find it there and can share it with their mates. (still thinking about this and should have something in the next couple of days) |
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Post by cejones on Jan 8, 2015 1:08:17 GMT
Hi Lindsay,Bogdan,
Yes I'd be up for working on this. I should be able to do the programming needed for it and am happy working with the Raspberry Pi, Might be a bit awkward using a bicycle to power the Pi without some sort of battery backup or Solar cells to keep it powered up continuously.
Think getting the Pi to work with the receipt printer would be difficult, as the only linux drivers available for those printers are for normal Intel processor computers, I can look into writing some very basic printer driver but it could be quite a big job. If a PC is available that would be most likely to work.
I think using a iPad wouldn't work as it would need to connect to the expensive wireless printers and scanners only and wold be a lot more complicated to set up.
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Post by cejones on Jan 16, 2015 0:11:10 GMT
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Post by cejones on Feb 4, 2015 0:28:18 GMT
Hi,
Just wondered what is happening with this. Not heard anything for a while
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, as we can find an enthusiast programer to help us, and plus it adds to the whole ‘narrative’ of the festival. The trick part is to create the database and the relationship between the items.