1. Mehrnoosh Vahdat
Tatjana Pavlenko
Arne Böckmann
Maris Üksti
Elise Sass

2. Problem?
Three washing machines in the Laundry Room of student dormitory
Note:
Those machines do not
have screens and cannot
calculate the time of
washing programs
Six keys to the Laundry Room
Washing machines are always busy
It is hard to know when your laundry is ready
Students need to check the room several times

3. Solution!
To let students know when the machine gets free and when their
own laundry is ready to be picked up

4. Video demonstration of using
our improved Laundry Room
WATCH

5. How?
• A student gets an RFID key to the Laundry Room
• Comes to the Laundry Room and inserts RFID key to RFID reader
• The display shows information about the current use of washing machines
If there ARE free machines: If there are NO free machines:
o Types his/her mobile o Types his/her mobile phone number in
order to get SMS notification later
phone number in order to o Joins the queue for the next machine
get SMS notification later available
o Receives an SMS when any machine
o Gets an index of the becomes available
available machine o Comes to the Laundry Room and inserts
RFID key to RFID reader again
o Presses OK and opens the o Gets an index of the available machine
door o Presses OK and opens the door
• Becomes the current user of a particular machine and starts washing
• Goes away
• (Checks the current situation of his washing process in the internet)
• After some time gets an SMS that his laundry is ready
• Comes to the Laundry Room again
• Picks up his/her laundry

6. Ubiquitous Computing
• Sound rationale for the proposed approach
Making washing clothes more automatic and easier for the students. At the same
time not changing the routines for Dormitory administration.
• Elaborate all the initial beliefs
We do not have a difficult thing to solve. The hardest problem we could face
would be that the dormitory administration won’t let test the project in real life.
Otherwise we believe that students would be really happy to use the system as it
would help to plan their schedules much better and they would not have to
depend on the machines and checking them, but they can easily set their
schedule.
• Metaphor rationale
If the washing machine would be quicker, we could have a line of people waiting
for their turn, but washing a load of clothes takes time. Therefore we need to
make a virtual queue for people who want to wash their clothes.
Queue is the metaphor itself where we started from. We also included more
information - like information of when the load is finished.
• Where is it possible to deploy the solution?
Our solution is possible to deploy into the dormitory Laundry Room

7. Ubiquitous Computing
• It is possible to test the solution, but we will not be able to do that in real life. For
testing we would need the permission to open the Laundry Room washing
machines and put our device in it. But we have tested all the necessary tools for
the project and built a working prototype.
• Our project has an implementable concept, because the system we created could
be easily used in dorms. The solution would actually be helpful for the dorm
system.
At the same time we wouldn’t change the existing system that dorm
administration is holding on. We could prove them the easy way without actually
changing the work and routine of the guards at the dorm who sign up and give out
the keys to access the Laundromat itself.
• With this system we also have the hidden information how often machines are
used and at what times. It could also help to work out any further plans for the
Laundry Room and its usage in he future - if and when new machines would be
needed. How to set or have suggestions for students when to wash their clothes
(at what times there are less people using the machines). Would it be needed to
include one more machine and when.

9. Real model
4 stages

10. Prototype

11. Let’s start with prototype…
We have:
 4 buttons
 1 Phidget interface kit
 1 RFID reader
 RFID tags
 1 touch screen

12. Creating and testing a
prototype
• Phidgets:
• Hook up Phidgets
• Get some connection from Java to Phidgets
• Hook up buttons to Phidgets
• Get some Event from the Buttons
• Try to explain what happens and why for each
of the above steps

13. Creating and testing a
prototype
• RFID:
• Hook up the reader
• Get some connection from Java to the reader
• Try to read a Tag
• Get Events of tags appear/disappear
• Try to explain what happens and why for each
of the above steps

14. Creating and testing a
prototype
• Implement the logic
• Launch the touch screen
• Connect Phidgets, RFID reader and the touch
screen
• Use data from Java to create an HTML-page
with information about the washing process

15. Data in the Internet

16. Thanks for your attention!