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This project is funded by Reading Council and Coraledge Ltd as part of Reading's Year of Culture in 2016.
Reading Hotspots is about connecting audiences and artists and growing the attendance at arts events in Reading. Reading’s arts scene has to work hard to get the attention of a largely commuting population. If we can better connect artists and audiences in Reading we can increase attendance at performances at venues in Reading. This project directly addresses the problem by giving audiences a very simple way of finding out “Where’s hot in Reading?”, and rating the events.
Working with students from Reading (in particular UTC) we aim to develop devices and apps during the summer holidays as paid work experience.
We are building a physical device - the Reading Hotspot. We are also building apps for the public, venue owners, and the artist/performers. We are using The Things Network as the means of sending data from the Hotspots to the apps.
The hotspot periodically estimates the number of people in the area along with some environmental data such as temperature (well it IS called hotspot!), and sends the data over The Things Network to our server, which logs all the data from all the hotspots.
The apps use the data from the server to show venue owners how busy their venue is throughout the week and over the months, building up a profile of how "hot" they are on a given night. They can use this to measure the impact of different events to help them work out which artists pull in a crowd, or whether a Hawaii Night is better than a Summer Ball. The Reading public can use the app to help plan their nights out, and to rate the events they go to. For example they may want to go to a comedy show and then onto a live music event, but which venues are right for them and their kind of people?
For information on the physical device go to Hotspot devices
For information on the server go to Hotspot server
For information on the apps go to User story
For the current end-to-end flow go to The network
#The Team The team is led by Mark Stanley and is:
- Kieron Cardall
- Sam Kimbinyi
- Simon Light
- Tom Helyer
#Thanks Many people and organisations have helped bring this project to life. In particular we are grateful to:
- Reading 2016 Year of Culture - for part-funding the project
- The Things Network - this project sends all its sensor data over The Things Network
- GROW@GreenPark - massive thanks to Louize and the team for giving us the office space and a base for our project
- Ant, Ferg, Peter and Tom for donating 4 laptops to the quest! Without you we wouldn't have anything on which to write the code
- UTC Reading for donating 4 students! Reading is blessed with a fantastic technical college and staff who encourage their students to get invloved in the wider community
- Friends from TTN Reading, TTN Thatcham, rLab, Reading Geek Night and so many virtual friends on the TTN forum - who are phenomenally generous with their time, advice, support and encouragement