We spent part of this week talking about potentially changing the system to include a different type of sensor to observe the number of items in every cart. After discussing with our faculty advisor and talking between each other, we decided against it since it would have been an additional effort to integrate it into our system, something we didn’t think was worth it. As a team, we spent the rest of the week fleshing out and implementing the architecture of our system while also working on the design review slides.
After doing some more research into how OpenCL works, we realized that OpenCL converts kernel code (C/C++) into RTL and synthesizes it, in which case our Gantt chart needs to be modified. Now, our schedule has a dependency where we need to have an algorithm in OpenCV, then find the portion of the code that needs to be sped-up, and make a C/C++ implementation from Python so that we can accelerate it using OpenCL. Therefore, the allocation of tasks has changed and a few tasks have been shuffled/removed. Below is our revised Gantt chart:
A was written by Simon, B was written by Shubhi, C was written by Brian
Part A: Our system expedites the grocery shopping process, which hopefully alleviates some of the frustrations that might arise from having to wait in lines. With regard to public health, a more pleasant shopping experience could encourage people to shop for their own groceries more frequently, which tends to be healthier than eating at restaurants. This also benefits public welfare, since our system aims to make the basic need of buying groceries more convenient. Where safety is concerned, the use of cameras in our system could be concerning for the customers. However, the only data we aim to collect about people is the number of them (and not who is) in a line at a given time, and we will not be storing any significant amount of camera footage. Furthermore, people are already monitored in grocery stores through security cameras, so our additional cameras will not be capturing any information that wouldn’t already be known for security purposes.
Part B: Individuals are bound to have a better shopping experience where they are able to save time at the grocery store. People are more likely to return back to the grocery store and make more visits if they have a positive shopping experience, almost fostering a sense of community at the grocery store. Many demographics of people don’t get a lot of social interaction, such as the elderly, and a positive grocery store experience provides an opportunity to foster that sense of community and increase social interaction between such groups. Integrating a system that decreases the time it takes to get to the checkout counter also decreases the overall time a customer spends at the store, which is more time to spend elsewhere that can be directed to bettering society.
Part C: Our system increases the speed at which customers are able to check out of the store, and this could allow for stores to become more popular due to customer satisfaction with checkout times. With increased popularity, a given store using our system could increase revenue and by extension profit. Also, with faster checkout times, a store might not need as many cashiers to man the counters, which would also increase store profits due to cost cutting.