Camp Create is a part of Cisco’s DevNet Create conference and each year they pick about 30 people in groups of 5 and assign a topic. Think of it like a hackathon with some constraints to work with and a coach to guide you.
Since my wife is a teacher, I decided to pick the Education track, and our app “Roll Call” solved the challenge of both: taking roll, and gathering assignments through Cisco Spark and Cisco Meraki APIs.
Having worked with the Cisco Spark APIs, I took on making a bot that serves as the front end to gather assignments and take roll, but also guided the group around the design to make sure everything came together.
One of our group members did a talk on Microsoft’s Face API, and had the idea to use facial recognition to sign onto the WiFi. To track the user to the classroom, Meraki’s Scanning API sends the Device MAC address to a database that stores only the last 10 minutes, and flags those students as “online”
Once the bones were in place, taking roll and asking for assignments was simple.
