ChatCounter

ChatCounter counts your social interactions. The size of a credit card, it is clipped to your shirt or worn using a necklace at events and social gatherings. Each time you face another person wearing a ChatCounter for a while, the two devices recognize this interaction and increase the counter displayed on the device. Become the social superhero of the event by meeting lots of people and boosting your ChatCounter score!

Team

ChatCounter was the idea of Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers at RWTH Aachen University.
The software and the hardware was created by René Bohne and Jan Thar for the grand opening of the HCI Center at RWTH Aachen University.

Special thanks to Stephan Watterott and his crew!

Layout Files

ChatCounter Eagle schematics V1.0 ChatCounter Eagle layout V1.0 ChatCounter V1.0 PDF: schematics and layout

Software

HCIC_NAMETAG.zip: Displays Name for hours (thanks to no communication)
HCIC_OPENING_IR_COUNTER.zip: Communicates, counts up

Prototypes

We created two prototypes: one on the breadboard and one on our milling machine.
For the first prototype, we used a lol-shield and an atmega from an Arduino UNO with an 8MHz clock.

Final Board

Programmer

We created a programmer for the boards. The housing can be cut with a lasercutter. The PCB can be milled.
We will upload the layout files soon.

Here you can see some pictures from the programmer. The Arduino board (without atmega) that we use as a USB-serial interface for the programmer.
In the Arduino IDE, you need to select a compatible board like the Arduino Pro 3.3V 8MHz.