Nick Nieminen

OpenSeat

A team of university students wanted to check for available seats at libraries before trudging across campus only to find there was nowhere to sit and study. The OpenSeat device was designed to be installed on the underside of desks so that when the chair was occupied, it would send a signal to OpenSeat’s server, which would update a mobile app. Students could open the app to view floorplans of libraries with live statuses of each seat.

The sensor utilized a very basic method of sonar for measuring distance. It was programmed to check for a minimum distance, which was set based on the height of the chair, and if an object got closer than that threshold, it would read as occupied.