UTVrijhof CultureNews archiveUT launches Living Smart Campus

UT launches Living Smart Campus Campus a 'living lab' with six pilot projects

What is required to make better use of the University of Twente campus as a living lab, with experiments in which campus users play a primary role? UT students and staff were challenged to come up with ideas for the Living Smart Campus. Six pilot projects were selected from 50 entries: from health assessments by ‘Healthy Heroes’ to a competition for the most energy conscious student flat.

The campus, as a compact society, lends itself perfectly to experiments. Every day, thousands of people work and study there, and some of them live and engage in recreational activities there too. Innovating, experimenting and pioneering need not be restricted to the laboratories and lecture rooms, the campus itself can serve as a driver for new developments. Living Smart Campus denotes: scientifically challenging projects that are high profile and society oriented. These are not inward looking projects; preferably, they will involve participation by external parties, so that external perspectives are directed inward. Six pilot projects were outlined and pitched at the DesignLab, UT’s multidisciplinary design environment.

Healthy Heroes

The Healthy Heroes project aims to mobilise staff and students to become volunteers in respect of monitoring their health. Perhaps they already do that to some extent through commercially available ‘wearable’ sensors and their smartphones – this offering is still growing rapidly. A European Techmed Centre, yet to be established, will collect the data: for example, it also has toilets where users’ urine is analysed after they have identified themselves with their fingerprints. Users will be weighed while they wash their hands. But how will these Healthy Heroes know their data is in good hands? Will they actually want to know all results? Apart from information about individuals, there may also be trends that can be measured in respect of the entire campus population. The new centre will also serve as a test environment for businesses, for new sensors and diagnostics equipment.

Privacy-preserved crowd monitoring

Our smartphones, tablets or laptops constantly broadcast information to connect to Wi-Fi networks, for example. This information is attributed to a unique network address. It can also be used to track the movements of individuals or groups on the campus grounds, identify where busy events take place, and how spaces are utilised. By placing 150 Wi-Fi scanners indoors and outdoors on the campus grounds, ‘crowd monitoring’ can take place. A smart campus navigation system could be one of its potential applications. But what if we can trace the unique network addresses to people? Technically, monitoring may not be very complex, but the associated privacy issues certainly are: which is why parties such as Bits for Freedom and Privacy First were consulted.

Sustainabattle

A campus where a great deal of research takes place into sustainable energy, for example, the application of renewable sources, should lead by example. A truly green campus could soon even be energy neutral. The Sustainabattle project aims to tap into students’ ideas. In a month-long competition, student flats will take on the challenge to manage energy as efficiently as possible and arrange for more sustainable energy provisions. Consumption will be monitored continually and reported weekly, which will add an element of excitement. The winners will hold the title of ‘the most sustainable campus residents’ for a year and win energy saving products and a house party. By tapping into the inventiveness of student residents, new initiatives can be developed on the journey to becoming a green campus.

Escape room

Escape rooms are spaces filled with challenging brainteasers that visitors must solve to be able to leave the space again. Students from the Inter-Actief (Computer Science) student association want to place two shipping containers in the Educations & Research Centre of the campus from 11 to 29 April 2016. During that period, all staff and students can accept the challenge to solve all the brainteasers devised by the students. The motto is ‘Think like Turing,’ a reference to the British scientist who cracked the German Enigma machine during World War II. In addition to developing clever brainteasers and programming, the project raises issues in respect of regulations and logistics: what are the conditions with which such an event must comply? A point of interest is whether the behaviour of participants in the escape room could be the subject of psychological research.

Green Office Twente

Various sustainable developments are taking place across the campus: in research, the management of the campus and buildings, and on an individual basis. Green Office Twente aims to be the main contact centre and nexus point for these activities. Students run the Green Office and it collaborates with, amongst others, the international student organisation Enactus, the Facility Department and UT’s Human Resources Management Department. This collaboration can lower the threshold in terms of facilitating sustainable initiatives such as a designated day on which people eat less meat, for example.

Internet of Things, IoTwente

The University of Twente leads in respect of research into the Internet of Things. All kinds of devices and sensors will soon communicate with one another, often wirelessly and autonomously. That might start with an intelligent thermostat, and might soon extend to vehicles that communicate with each other. The Smart Cities vision can already be tested within the compact environment of Kennispark Twente. There, sensors are able to provide a wealth of information, for example, about traffic and parking movements, water and air quality, energy consumption, or vibrations in buildings. How all that metadata is interlinked is a compelling issue. At the same time, it raises questions in terms of security – is the network safe from hackers? – and privacy. The Pervasive Systems (CTIT) group has already created the foundation with the establishment of the Twente IoT platform.

ir. W.R. van der Veen (Wiebe)
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