Durante el curso 2019/20 hemos participado en un proyecto muy interesante ya que estamos colaborando con la empresa DXC Technology de Avilés. A través de su fundación han puesto en marcha este proyecto para impulsar las STEAM desde los colegios. Es una gran iniciativa y una gran experiencia para los alumnos que desarrollan los proyectos STEAM que ven que sus proyectos van a tener una aplicación en la realidad. Gracias a Igor Botamino, por ser nuestro enlace y por apostar por nuestro centro y proponer este tipo de proyectos donde prima el DIY (Do It Yourself)

En estos proyectos participan alumnos desde 3º ESO hasta Bachillerato. Se han dividido en 5 grupos y cada uno de ellos está desarrollando un miniproyectos:

• Pecera: proyecto que controla el pH, turbidez, temperatura del agual, y temperatura y humedad ambiental. Integrado con tecnología IoT, que manda todos estos datos para que puedan ser mostrados en una aplicación móvil
• ¿Sala ocupada?: proyecto que indica si la una sala se encuentra ocupada, si hay otras redes wifi a su alcance, y la temperatura y humedad ambiental. Integrado con tecnología IoT, que manda todos estos datos para que puedan ser mostrados en una aplicación móvil
• Control de parking: proyecto que le permite saber a los trabajadores según vayan llegando si existen plazas libres en el parking. Integrado con tecnología IoT, que manda todos estos datos para que puedan ser mostrados en una aplicación móvil
• Semáforo de ruido: proyecto que será instalado en la cafetería de la empresa para el control de ruido. Muestra también la temperatura y la humedad. Integrado con tecnología IoT, que manda todos estos datos para que puedan ser mostrados en una aplicación móvil
• Aplicación móvil: app que recoge los datos de estos cuatro proyectos pudiendo visualizar todos los datos en tiempo real.
• Pagina web: web informativa donde los alumnos han ido documentando todo el proceso de investigación y creación

DXC Young Makers

What´s It All About?

Background

We will be collaborating with the school “Colegio Salesiano Santo Ángel” for this project. There is a close relationship between Colegio Salesiano and the Asturias Delivery Center for many reasons – especially since it´s the school with the most participation in our coding contests since the very beginning.

If there is one feature that makes this school stand out from the rest, it is their commitment to new technologies and STEAM areas in general, as they make sure to include these subjects in all parts of their school curriculum. This is greatly evidenced not only by their methodology but also by the many awards and recognition prizes they´ve received during the last few years. 

Just to name a few: 

• 2016: third classified in the ICT Boosting Week for their “TICs TACs” project
• 2018: the school is provided with materials to create a FabLab
• 2019: the school wins SteamxHealth challenge in Spain

The Challenge

When this initiative began to take shape, we visited the students to talk about the challenge. Together, we chose a list of projects which will have an actual implementation at the Asturias Delivery Center, and that will be explained below. 

“Who does What”

• DXC will provide materials and means to develop the projects
• Students will work on the projects based on their skills
• Sara García, the school’s computing teacher, will guide the workgroups
• DXC Volunteers will act as mentors of the workgroups

Results

Once the projects are finished, all the students will come to our center to install the devices they created, programmed and designed. 

A closing event will take place, and we will record a report to interview all the people involved in this initiative and to present and share the final results of these projects. 

The Projects

 Noise and temperature control 

The canteen area at the Asturias Delivery Center is a very crowded place. Through this project the students will create a device which will measure two elements: 

1. Noise: it will be measured using the “Noise Traffic Light” system. This will be useful for everyone to know when to lower their voices. 
2. Temperature: it will be measured and displayed in a small screen. 

Parking access counter

There is a two-floor underground car park in the Asturias Delivery Center, but there is a big issue: we are around 1000 employees and parking spaces are limited. When employees arrive at the office, they don’t know if there will be any parking place available at the underground car park. They have a try anyway, but, most of the times they have to park their car outside the building. 

The idea of this project is to count how many cars enter and exit from the underground car park, so employees will be able to check availability in a mobile application and also in a display close to the car park barrier.

Meeting room presence monitoring

People book meeting rooms which later do not use and forget to cancel more often than we realize. The result of this situation is an underutilization of these meeting rooms so, to mitigate this problem, a presence detection system will be created. The system will collect real-time occupation information and also data that shall be extracted and analyzed later.  

Unauthorized WIFI detector

The creation of on-the-fly wireless networks is just one of the features that mobile devices include nowadays. To make sure that this is not happening at the Center, through this project a device to monitor and alert about unauthorized networks will be created: it will be checking wireless connections continuously and, in the event that an unauthorized connection is detected, the system will send an e-mail to the Security team automatically to prevent them. 

Center koi pond water status

In the Central Atrium of Asturias RDC there is a koi pond. There’s a total of 5 koi carps and, since they are susceptible to certain diseases and they are delicate species, we thought that monitoring their habitat could be a great idea. This project will be focused on monitoring water status, checking water temperature, PH values and turbidity. It will be useful to keep historical data and real-time values, and also to prevent our koi carps of potential diseases. 

The School

A group of students of this school will participate in the development of these projects. To assign them to each project, we took as a reference their age, knowledge and IT skills. 

Sara García is the teacher who will guide the students through the process.  You can read more about Sara here: https://twitter.com/SaraIsaGBaron

Materials and Budget

The students sent us a list of the materials they will need to realize the projects. They will use Arduino boards as the base of all the projects, adding several sensors (temperature, humidity, presence, distance, etc.), displays, screens and some methacrylate pieces to build cases for devices using their laser cutting machine. 

We added some T-shirts, a commemorative trophy, and some swag for the closure of the event to complete a budget of €1,341.43. We sent this budget to the DXC Foundation, who loved the idea and were pleased to support us in this initiative.  We ordered all the components, most of them through Amazon, and while we waited for them to arrive we began developing a marketing plan.

Marketing Materials

Before sending our proposal to the DXC Foundation, we had to think of a name for the project. We held an informal brainstorming session to come up with ideas. We went through a lot of funny and crazy proposals before settling on the name we liked most: “DXC Young Makers,” as the flavor of the projects is expressive of the “Maker Movement.”

We had a name, now we needed a logo that could easily be printed on our T-shirts and social media posts.  We considered several different options and finally decided to use the following one:

Santa Claus and the Presents

Once we received all the materials for the projects, we went to the school to deliver them to the students. As Sara García expressed it, “The students were waiting for us like we were Santa Claus loaded with presents!” 🙂

It was very inspiring to feel their energy and passion as they opened each box, commenting on how they were going to use each component for the projects. It was also a good opportunity for us to see all the projects they´ve done during the last years and to try out some of the cool stuff they have in their Fab Lab. 

It is amazing how Sara and her students, with the support of the school, have been able to create this Fab Lab, which has won several awards. You can find a laser cutting machine, 3D printers, VR glasses and many other cool devices.

Next Steps

Everything is ready for our Young Makers to start the projects and solve the challenges we proposed. Now it´s time to give them some time to do their job and support them in anything they need. I’m confident they won’t let us down, since their talent and passion, as in the Arduino logo, is infinity! 

I will update this Sway document as we progress. Stay tuned!

Trophy Idea

We had included a commemorative trophy in the project´s budget. But then I thought, why don´t we create our own using a 3D printer? We´ve already started with some first concepts based on the Arduino logo.

Update (Friday, Nov 15th)

T-shirts has arrived!

Update (Monday, Nov 18th)

Students are progressing in their projects. Check out this video to see how amazing they are!