Temporary luggage storage facilities are a necessity in big and crowded cities where there is heavy human movement. Currently (and particularly in my country Kenya) persons within a Central Business District (CBD) have a problem in storing luggage especially where one needs to temporarily store their luggage.
In the ordinary average supermarkets, customers who have luggage that they would want to store temporarily for a short period of time as they shop are issued a luggage card that they use to store and or pick their luggage. There is an attendant responsible for picking the bags/luggage from a desk, manually places them on numbered shelves same to the card they’re issues. During retrieval, the customer issues the card that is then used to retrieve his/her luggage. There is no electronics in the entire storage and retrieval system, this thus accrue the following shortcomings:
The major problem this project sets to solve is the insecurities, inconveniency and unavailability of well stationed temporary luggage storage facilities especially for persons in a central business district (CBD) set up.
The major specific objects for this project are:
Beba-Beggie: is a swahili word that means "carry a bag" thus this project is about a temporary luggage storage facility that provides persons in CBD set up an electronic luggage storage solution that is secure, convenient, temporary and affordable. The e-storage system employs the use of an RFID (electronic based identification system) card, tag or sticker that is issued upon payment of a small fee depending on the storage space, weight and or time. The RFID card/tag/sticker is issued for collection later on, relieving off the inconvenience of walking around with them (luggage). The card is swiped to either unlock or lock a solenoid lock system (electronic operated lock system), the unique ID in the card only allows for access to the particular dock per particular time.
On swiping, the issued card opens a storage space by allowing access through a solenoid lock system (an electronic operated lock system).With a user friendly customer/operator interface, the system directly engages the user with info such as what luggage docks are free and which ones are occupies by use of a visual RGB lighting system. This thus makes the system secure, semi-automatic and reliably convenient for both the customers and the business owner.
I plan to produce and install this product in my country soon as this project is successful.
The Beba-Beggie project: Assembled and integrated with a user friendly interface.
The Beba-Beggie project: Automatic storage/retrieval, door lock and actuation mechanism.
Note: Due to the time frame I was working with, inavailability of soe of the components I needed and the extensive research this projects needs, I decided to limit my scope for FabAcademy final project from making the system fully autonomous(storage and retrivals) to just locking and unlocking using RFID reader as input and the RGB LEDs, solenoid locks and buzzer as the output devices. Thus I eliminated the anti-backlash leadscrew and stepper motor functionalities to a simply swipe and unlock mechanisms.
For a proper detailed and well explained steps, I broke down the fabrication of this product into modules as discussed in this web page.
This module contains all the procudures,methods and tecniques I used to fabricate the mechanical structure/body.