Mandy is a very busy private tutor. She has students scheduled to come at hourly intervals. Sometimes she runs late with a student because she is finishing off her explaining or something goes awry. She hates when her following student comes and is waiting for her. It puts too much pressure on her to finish. She is looking for a way to solve this problem.
Currently she has a secretary that has an appointment book in which she puts in all of the appointments for the day. She wants the secretary to have an appointment book that is just a little smarter. She wants there to be a button that the secretary presses next to the 8 o'clock appointment which will tweet that the 8 o'clock student has been taken into Mandy for tutoring.
Mandy believes that someone on the Arduino forum might have a solution for making her a smarter appointment book.
Can someone help Mandy out?
What supplies does she need? What components does she need? Is this a feasible project?
agrinshtein:
She hates when her following student comes and is waiting for her. It puts too much pressure on her to finish. She is looking for a way to solve this problem.
It seems to me that the solution is to either be more disciplined about bringing each session to a conclusion in good time, or provide a buffer between sessions in case of an overrun.
I can't imagine how you think 'tweeting' will help the problem, or why you would consider using a microcontroller to implement a diary and tweeting system and whatever other baggage you think is needed to solve this 'problem'.
agrinshtein:
She hates when her following student comes and is waiting for her. It puts too much pressure on her to finish.
So you want some way of preventing the student with the 8:30 appointment from showing up? Hmmm. And then of course, the 9 o'clock student would have to be delayed as well.
5 minutes before the student's session is over, tell them to pack their books and bag and get out of there.
If the student's ride/mom didn't show up on time, tell student to wait outside, and charge mom babysitting fee. You're a tutor, not a baby sitter.
If a student needs more time explaining, the student needs to book a 1-1/2 hr session, instead of a 1 hr session.
I am a little concerned - my local newsagent's window has a number of handwritten cards in it, advertising the services of various "tutors" (who knew there'd be such a market for Swedish, Thai or French tutors?)
AWOL:
I am a little concerned - my local newsagent's window has a number of handwritten cards in it, advertising the services of various "tutors" (who knew there'd be such a market for Swedish, Thai or French tutors?)
Anyway... Before the moderators step in(!) I'd just like to say that the basic idea is entirely workable - its a synthesis of an GSM or ethernet tweeting sketch (there will be lots of examples that do just "detect button, send SMS or hit webpage". The time keeping can be either a
real-time clock module or if using ethernet get the time from the internet might be easier with NTP.
I'd suggest searching around for existing working examples to base a design on, fewer issues to deal with then.
MarkT:
Before the moderators step in(!) I'd just like to say that the basic idea is entirely workable ...
The original post makes quite a bit more sense now in light of the, ah, suggestions others have made. Finally I'm starting to understand what the project is really about.
