Inter-Campus Wifi & GPS Tracking

Message from babell@pacific.edu

Message from dwcarder@wisc.edu

Thus spake Zachary McGibbon, Mr (zachary.mcgibbon@MCGILL.CA) on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 04:27:37PM +0000: > > One of the next parts of the project we would like to do is to add GPS tracking to the bus so students would know how close the bus is (as it gets quite cold here in Montreal during the winter!). Since there is a second Ethernet port available on the AP70, we thought of using this for the GPS, however I can't find any Ethernet GPS'. > > Does anyone have any ideas of what we could use? I had thought about getting a Garmin OEM GPS with a serial port output connected to a Lantronix Serial to Ethernet box and sending back the NMEA strings to a server, however I wanted to find an all included Ethernet solution and not have to worry about powering and configuring two devices. This sounds like a perfect application for an Arduino connected to a Parallax GPS. http://arduino.cc/playground/Tutorials/GPS Maybe you could find some electrical engineering students to build it as a project :-) Otherwise, as you mention something based on APRS could work too. Dale ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Message from me@mpking.com

I haven't followed this in awhile, but the geograhics lab at Bridgewater State University looks like there still doing this:

You could always contact Blirpit, which was developed here at UVM (where is it also very cold in the winter!)

To fine-tune your time managment skills you can use the Bus Line Information Retrieval Program, or Blurpit, a locally invented transportation-tracking service which allows students to track on- and off-campus buses in an attempt to increase efficiency and reduce waiting time at bus stops, both online and through their mobile phone! Find out where your bus is in 'real-time' and avoid standing outside in the blustery Burlington winters!

www.blirpit.com


Lynne Meeks
University of Vermont

On 2/1/2012 11:56 AM, Dale W. Carder wrote:

Thus spake Zachary McGibbon, Mr (zachary.mcgibbon@MCGILL.CA) on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 04:27:37PM +0000:

One of the next parts of the project we would like to do is to add GPS tracking to the bus so students would know how close the bus is (as it gets quite cold here in Montreal during the winter!). Since there is a second Ethernet port available on the AP70, we thought of using this for the GPS, however I can't find any Ethernet GPS'. Does anyone have any ideas of what we could use? I had thought about getting a Garmin OEM GPS with a serial port output connected to a Lantronix Serial to Ethernet box and sending back the NMEA strings to a server, however I wanted to find an all included Ethernet solution and not have to worry about powering and configuring two devices.

This sounds like a perfect application for an Arduino connected to a Parallax GPS. http://arduino.cc/playground/Tutorials/GPS Maybe you could find some electrical engineering students to build it as a project :-) Otherwise, as you mention something based on APRS could work too. Dale ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Dale beat me to it, as I was thinking of the exact same thing. With perhaps the downside being adding support complexity should it have an issue.

On 2/1/2012 1:11 PM, Peter P Morrissey wrote:

Sweet!  It seems like one challenge would be the devices would constantly be resetting every time the bus stops running if you are powered directly off the alternator? Has that caused any issues? On top of that it seems like you would be dealing with some environmental extremes that you wouldn’t normally have depending upon how it is all housed.

Our local metro service (CARTA) added WiFi on their buses several years ago.  It took several weeks and some co-incidental problem reporting to discover that when the buses drove through campus (we're bordered by several main city avenues) anyone on the bus using their wireless would be dropped.

We were doing rogue AP detection and mitigation at the time :)

Jeff
********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Well, at least you found out that the mitigation worked as advertised! :)

Message from zachary.mcgibbon@mcgill.ca

Message from bosborne@liberty.edu