Code::XtremeApps:: 2017 winners leverage IoT for smarter apps

The top three winners in the open category with guest of honour Angeline Poh, Assistant Chief Executive (Industry Development), IMDA, fourth from left. Team XCVI are at left and team Neptune are in the middle.

The annual Code::XtremeApps:: (CXA) hackathon has concluded this year with Jay Lim Jiayi, Wang Yaofeng and Oh Yong Liang from winning team Neptune in the Open category walking away with S$9,000 in cash. Hacker Republic and Pro Hackers, the top winning teams for the School and Junior categories* respectively, received gadget prizes.

Organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) and the IT Standards Committee (ITSC), the hackathon was supported by the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) of Singapore, Home-Fix DIY, PSA Singapore and Suntec City.  The 2017 edition of CXA was held on 14 and 15 July, 2017, with the award ceremony on 28 July, 2017.

Themed My Smart City: Connecting Our Senses, CXA aims to raise the awareness of coding, computational thinking and problem solving, and to get more people of all ages interested in the topics. The hackathon also aims to encourage the use of standards when deriving solutions. The longest-running 24-hour hackathon in Singapore has an 11-year history and saw 118 teams comprising more than 340 participants – a mix of students, software engineers, business analysts, programmers and more - coming together this year to compete in computer programming, to innovate and solve challenges using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and standards.

The winning solutions include improving overall safety of operations within the port of Singapore through the use of data, sensors and GPS to provide real-time feedback, allowing for faster response times; an application that allows the monitoring of crowd engagement of ad-hoc events and exhibitions; and a smart bus stop solution that uses sensors to detect weather conditions as well as alert commuters of approaching buses.

Team Neptune aims to make the PSA environment safer by monitoring truck drivers to determine if they are tired or engaging in unsafe practices, like accelerating too much when it is raining. Complex event processing techniques are used to analyse data and send alerts to the drivers, or request that they take a break. Any changes in assignment are updated at the control centre.

Team Hacker Republic from Dunman High School (Doreen Tin, Luo Qi, Jerrayl Ng, and Liu Chen En) used  various sensors and feedback mechanisms to determine crowd engagement. Their Horus Event Tracker application allows administrators and space owners to monitor the crowd engagement of ad-hoc events and exhibitions. The application consists of three modules: The sensor-enabled Arduino solution connected to a Raspberry Pi, a Raspberry Pi and a Pi Camera, as well as social media analytics. The system can detect how long people stand in front of an object, how many people there are in a given area and how long they stay. The data is combined with sentiment analysis from Twitter.

A closer look at the various sensors used. From left: sound sensor, light sensor, motion sensor and a button array. People can be invited to push various buttons to respond to a question.

Team Pro Hackers from Ulu Pandan Stars, Puneeth Choudhary Kollu, Dylan Leong, and Noor Iman Bin Ahmad Fairuz, worked on a smart bus stop solution. The smart bus stop detects when it is wet and when it is hot to activate a temporary rain shelter and a fan respectively. A buzzer informs commuters that their bus is approaching. Guest of honour Poh is at left.

Challenge statements this year were contributed by CSA, PSA Singapore and Suntec City. The topics included:

• Fleet management
• Hot-desking
• Smart inventory and asset management
• Cybersecurity
• Crowd engagement
• Feedback management

This is the first year that challenge statements** were released six weeks before the 24-hour competition. Each team was required to address one challenge statement. Teams were assessed based on a range of criteria including how well challenge statements were addressed, the value and impact of the applications to end-users and their technical features. Solutions that are seen to be viable, may have potential funding opportunities to develop the ideas further.

The Deputy Chairman of the IT Standards Commitee, Chak Kong Soon, said the organisers looked for real-life problems as challenge statements. "We have to be at the forefront of this exciting revolution and this revolution is coming whether you like it or not," he said.

"The quality was extremely good," he added, sharing that winning teams were separated by mere points.

Said Tan Kiat How, Chief Executive of IMDA, “We are pleased to see many enthusiastic individuals who have great ideas and capabilities this year. I am particularly impressed by the passion and quality of projects by the children in the Junior category. Innovation is a crucial ingredient in enabling Singapore to continually tackle challenges and seize growth opportunities in a digital era. This hackathon is a good platform that brings people and companies together to think about practical solutions to existing business problems, and inspire new ways of thinking.”

Angeline Poh, Assistant Chief Executive (Industry Development), IMDA noted, “In future everything and anything can be connected so that's a glimpse into our future.”

“This year's winning solutions showed a lot of potential, even those from the junior category,” she commented, and hoped that some of the solutions will be commercialised.

The Junior category invited contestants to use the micro:bit to solve a challenge. The micro:bit is a pocket-sized, codeable microcontroller with various features like motion detection and Bluetooth technology.

On top of the top three prizes for each category, two special prizes were awarded this year – the Best & Innovative by Design Award awarded by PSA to the team from the Open Category that demonstrates the most innovative design solution in tackling PSA’s challenge statements; and the Security by Design prize awarded by CSA, which was awarded to the team that best demonstrated their approach and implementation of the Security by Design concept, or how security considerations are incorporated upfront in the design of the project.

Denise Tan, Sherina Toh, and Jarrett Yeo from the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, who formed a team called XCVI, won second prize in the open category as well as the PSA special prize. XCVI created a mobile app called iOffice@PSA to facilitate smart offices. The app includes a reservation system for spaces and a first-come first-served system for booking enabled by iBeacon triangulation. Security features and smart suggestions are supported, as is central resource management on a data analytics dashboard.

Insertteamname, a team from the Singapore University of Technology and Design comprising Yin Ji Sheng, Bernard Yim, and Nicholas Yeow won the CSA prize for a hot desking solution that includes the ability to personalise generic desks with an app-controlled mobile device that offers custom lighting, notes to oneself, and the ability to include images of choice. In Project HomeDesk a camera also counts the number of people in a room to determine if bookings are being fulfilled, and will free a room booking if the people have not turned up for a meeting.

CXA also continued its strong history of ensuring participating teams were well prepared. Multiple workshops and site visits including to the port were also organised up to a month prior to competition day to give participants the basics of not just IoT technologies, but also on standards, data analytics, business intelligence, and the Personal Data Protection act.

Interested?

Watch the Instavideo of the smart bus stop project

*Juniors must be aged 12 or below or up to primary six on 1 January 2017. The School category is for those in secondary to pre-university; and the open category is for enthusiasts of all ages and all walks of life. The junior category is three hours long while the other two categories are 24-hour.

**Sample challenge statements include:

Challenge statement for fleet management, sponsored by PSA Corporation

"There is a growing emphasis on energy savings and safety of vehicle operations in the port. With the advancement of wireless IoT technologies, it brings about new levels of capabilities to fleet management. Our fleet of equipment generate an enormous amount of information such as fuel consumption, miles logged, speed tracking, vehicle usage patterns and much more.

Leveraging this vast pool of data via connected vehicles services would provide insights and enable greater visibility to achieve maximum operation control. Having a faster way to identify potential problems and mitigate risks that could jeopardise driver safety in the port can bring about significant benefits in terms of cost, staff and environmental well-being."

Contestants were invited to:

 Propose and develop a solution that enables better management of the vehicles via connected devices.

 Propose a solution using sensors and wireless IoT to gain greater visibility in fleet management. E.g. Vehicle status and preventive maintenance, speed tracking.

 Develop a web portal that helps to monitor and achieve the desired outcomes

Besides enhancing fleet management for better security, safety and maintainability PSA also sponsored challenge statements on asset management and secure communications within devices, enabled via Blockchain. Lawrence Ng, Head of Infocomm Technology at PSA Singapore, noted that plans for a megaport at Tuas provide an opportunity for PSA to redefine the next generation of ports. Pervasive use of IoT, robotics, and AI are expected, with prototypes already under testing in a living lab today. PSA also reaches out to startups and will continue to support innovation initiatives, Ng said, to boost fresh perspectives and unlimited possibilities.

Challenge statement for hot desking for a smart office

“Hot desking is an office concept being considered for adoption at our future office. In a hot desking environment, certain office resources are shared and will be utilised in a first-come, first-served basis. This poses a challenge when employees will need to schedule meetings and discussions with our colleagues. as the availability of these supporting resources might not be available when needed. According to one workplace study, 70% of employees on similar arrangements waste 15 minutes per day trying to find a work area. Location - based technology (through connected lighting or sensors) helps to ensure that users can find free space easily and occupancy is updated on the booking system automatically to ensure accuracy. Users will also be able to enquire on availability of shared resources (e.g. printers, coffee machines, etc.), as well as their colleagues within the office. By placing information and control back into the hands of employees, this potentially disruptive hot desking arrangement can be highly successful and lead to a more collaborative workforce.

Contestants were invited to:

 Develop a mobile application to assist with booking of shared resources – desks, meeting rooms, phone booths and discussion areas.

Challenge statement for understanding crowd engagement of ad-hoc events in common spaces (e.g. airport, malls, exhibitions):

"There is a multitude of installations/events for visitors of common spaces, including art installations, pop-up activity booths etc. Today, data such as footfall, utilisation rates and satisfaction levels for such installations are collected by surveyors as it is not cost effective to implement a permanent fixture on these temporary installations. Furthermore, feedback gathered is limited to the duration that surveyors have been engaged. The results may also lack insight on the form of interaction and behaviour taken place between the visitor and the installation/event. In consideration of the current digital landscape, visitors may also turn to social media to share on their experience, which contains raw insights that may not be captured during surveys.

Common space operators would like to collect continuous data on parameters such as footfall, dwell time, crowd movement, behaviour and satisfaction levels at these installations to obtain insights on visitor engagement with such installations. If possible, these data on physical interactions and presence can be cross-referenced with social media feedback/comments on the installation for a more in-depth analysis. The analysis and insights would be used to understand how well-received installations are to enable operators to make informed decisions to better cater to visitors’ preferences and enhance their experience. 

Contestants were invited to:
 
 Design a solution to gather data (such as footfall and utilisation rate) to determine visitor engagement with these temporary installations. 

 The solution should be able to be used on any installations/events and is portable to different installations of different scale and nature. As a guide, the scale of the installations/events are as follows: 

1. Small installations: A static or interactive installation such as art piece, landscape or sculpture, requiring minimal or no movement from visitor to view it completely. 

2. Medium installations: A static or interactive installation of a considerable footprint, requiring visitor to move around and to interact with the exhibit. 

3. Large installations: A single or collection of installations across a wide space with varying nature of interaction (i.e. static, interactive) with no gated / controlled access, allowing singular or multiple points of entry/exit. 

 The parameters collected may vary for each installation. For instance, a possible parameter for an art installation could be the dwell time of a visitor; however, this parameter might not be as applicable for activity booths that have fixed program duration. The solution should factor in the ability to customise data parameters to collect for each installation. Examples of parameters are as follows: 

1. Unique footfall 

2. Dwell time 

3. Heat maps/zonal heat maps 

4. Unique visitor path 

5. Unique views 

6. Satisfaction 

7. Demographics 

8. Interaction 

9. Custom input by visitor: for feedback, visitor comments or suggestions 

10. Social media feedback / comments 

 The solution should include both the hardware and software used to collect and analyse data.