Classroom Presence System Capstone
A low-cost, tap-free system that detects student entrance, presence, and exit.
Classroom Presence System
A low-cost, tap-free system that detects student entrance, presence, and exit.
Executive Pitch
Our pitch covering the problem, solution, implementation, the $700 pilot funding, and future directions.
Open the slides
Fig. 1: The prototype tap station. A card tap on the Raspberry Pi 4 and PN532 reader reaches OCS, the webcam and Mac Mini cross-check the face, and the Live Dashboard updates in about 2 seconds.
Fig. 2: Planned installation of UHF RFID reader and wall-mounted camera at the classroom entrance. The reader detects tags automatically as students walk in, so nobody taps, and the camera on the back wall faces them as they enter.
Fig. 3: The problem. Roll call says Present, but this student missed 29 of 66 minutes.
| If attendance takes 10 minutes... | Per school year (180 days) | That is about |
|---|---|---|
| per school day, in total | 10 min × 180 = 1,800 min = 30 hours | 5 full school days (at about 6 instructional hours a day) |
| per class period | 30 hours for that one class alone | about 18% of a 55-minute period, or roughly 33 class periods a year |
Why it matters: manual attendance can cost the equivalent of a full week of school per year. The 10 minutes is an assumption we will measure by timing attendance in real classes and from the teacher survey.
Talking points and details
The Idea
Traditional classroom attendance systems typically rely on a single observation or event to determine whether a student is present, which can be inaccurate and inefficient in determining analytics of actual time in classroom. Our system is intended to provide continuous and accurate tracking of student presence.
Overview
| The Problem | Roll call is a snapshot. It misses lost minutes, tardiness, restroom breaks, counseling visits, and early departures all flatten into one present/absent mark, and it costs teacher time every period. |
| Background | Time leaks in minutes, not just in whether a student showed up at all. Prior classroom-attendance studies (see Research) mostly check recognition at the door; few measure minutes-in-room against a real ground truth. |
| Research Question | Can classroom presence be measured with very low teacher effort? Design-based research, pragmatic mixed methods. The technology, RFID tap, QR, or face, is a variable under test, not the product. |
| Current Phase | Cycle 0 of the research design below is done: an RFID tap reliably reaches OCS. See Roadmap for the build roadmap, the Research Proposal for the full hypotheses and cycle plan, and the Presence System Index for live task tracking across all three inputs. |
Team & Workstreams
Three inputs are evaluated in parallel against the same presence engine, one owner each.
| Input | Owner | Status |
|---|---|---|
| RFID tap | Vibha Mandayam | Working prototype, tracked in #6 |
| QR scan | Ruta Sirdeshmukh | Not started, tracked in #7 |
| Face scan | Kush Shah | Existing system, integration pending, tracked in #8 |