VHS Attendance

@funvill, @laftho, and @jon just got back from SWARM a Hacker/Maker space conference in Seattle.
JWTOGEL : Menyediakan Pasaran Togel Hongkong, Togel Singapore, Togel Sidney I will be making a report in another topic later on.

One of the take homes from this conference is that we should be taking metrics of our “impact on our communities”. This information can be used to help get grants and funding, help the city see your value (eviction, press, etc…) and see how much impact you are having on your community.

The simplest form of metrics that we can take is attendence.

I have created this forum that will help us record this information
https://docs.google.com/a/abluestar.com/forms/d/1NDHU3g6Bmy4Dds6JZYnUZlvrIGbHCqz3T4mxJ7DJjos/formResponse

I have tried to keep this forum as small and simple as possible, with only 3 required questions (Date, Attendance, Type of night). Please suggestion improvements to this forum.

Anyone can submit a report, Multiple people can submit the same report for the same day too. I will be doing my best to validate reports and take averages of two submissions.

Please, if you are bottom lining an event, or closing the space, or at any event, fill out one of these reports.

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I wonder how difficult it would be to build a door counter that:

  1. Counts how many visitors to VHS
  2. Counts how many people are currently at VHS (live stats? Could be displayed on isVHSopen)
  3. BONUS: Pulls from Google Calendar the event and correlates it to the number of attendees

With a door counter too you can hook it into a bunch of cool IFTTT triggers as well… (notifications such as: if >10 people enter, a message is posted to slack)

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My job involved a lot of occupancy sensors. My favourite is a IR camera that tracks body heat as it passes a virtual line. I got the equipment and skill set, to install very accurate at automatically counting people in the space. Note the camera is an IR camera and does not record video only heat signatures.

I was avoiding installing hardware because of privacy issues.

Does anyone have a problem with me installing people counting hardware in the space to record the coming and going of people for attendance?

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Not saying “no” but I would prefer “number of people in the space” not be published publicly, especially if (number < 2)

  1. do we want people to publicly see that there is someone at the space and they are there alone,
  2. just because I drop in for 15-20 minutes because I’m a little early picking my wife up from work doesn’t mean I can or want to open the doors.

I don’t have a problem with a door counter though, it might be good to know. Even if the reporting was delayed… like, say a weekly occupancy graph… I think that would be better than putting on the site “1 person is currently in the space”

Or tie it in tot he isvhsopen switch. “The space is open and 5 lifeforms are detected” “the space is open and there is one lonely person there”, that I can get behind

I agree 100%
There are many times that I come down to VHS and don’t flip the ISVHSOPEN.com switch. This would be for monthly stats and not live data.

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How do you account for people leaving the room to use the pooper? you have
a specific algorithm for that?

I don’t see a problem with live data tied to isvhsopen switch… that could be fun and handy to have. but it should be opt-in. I can see people being at the space late at night and alone and that is a big public “someone is in the out of the way area alone with very expensive equipment!” sign

Funvill thanks for offering to do that.It would be okay if the data wasn’t public I think.

I’m thinking a door counter won’t
tell us much about demographics if that’s what we are trying to improve in
terms of numbers/diversity. I’m thinking this is less about knowing who is
in the space and more about doing stuff to encourage people to come out to
events/open houses/to check out the space.

Yes the thought about security with reporting # of people < 2. Agreed.

It would be cool to know though if the place is buzzing with people… so once occupancy reaches a threshold (>5?) then it publicly displays some kind of indicator (eg. “There’s a few people around” / “The place is busy” / “The place is packed”) when the switch is on.

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Pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

Yes, kinda. You can tell how many people have gone out and gone in. There is some meta data on the heat blobs that are leaving and entering that you can use to discount duplicate people. We also have the stats from the intercom as well. The numbers won’t be 100% accurate but they can be combined with people actually counting people in the room and reporting via the forum above.

The results would be tabulated and graphed for the end of the month.
Would you consider this public data ? or are you mostly talking about the live data?

Your absolutely correct, it will not tell us demographics, but it will tell us attendance and that’s a number that we could use to help us know how many people we “influence” in our community.

For example: 20k people came though VHS’s doors in the past year. Is a great stats that people like to see in grant proposals.

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@funvill @DeNomad
How do you discriminate between in/out or just divide by 2 assuming “no sleeping @ vhs”
I have a PIR device behind a slot which we used to install in supermarkets 20 yrs ago that does just this - includes an integrated Omron LCD event counter too. Maybe will drop off this eve at ARC desk - can be hacked if desired.

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@funvill - I would say detailed live data not good i.e. There is 1 person at the space, there are no people at the space…security issue… End of month stats I’d be fine with.

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Once it is in place, we could hack it to add things like flash the LED wall with “our 100th visitor this week!” and stuff… this could be very fun. I say go for it and we can hash out exact uses as they come up.

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Yes! A bell would go off and balloons would fall from the ceiling. :grinning:

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glitterbombed from the ceiling as they walk in so everyone can ID and “congratulate” them :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m ok with using technology to figure out how many people visit VHS. I tend to agree with the comments that this data should not be posted live for safety reasons.

A low tech approach would be to have a series of push buttons by the door and we ask visitors to voluntarily count themselves and their demographic by pushing the correct button, such as:

  • adult male
  • adult female
  • adult other
  • teen male
  • teen female
  • teen other
  • other

If you’re really curious about simple stats, why not mine the existing
waivers and make basic deductions based on name?

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How about a gigantic red button that you advise people to press when they first enter the space? Seems like the most brainless solution. Make the button ridiculously large and they people cant help but press it. Though you may need to add some deterrent to keep people from pressing it multiple times.

air raid siren 2.0: first press counts for bodycount, after that sets off siren :stuck_out_tongue: