Theme for 2025: Handling of E-Scooters
Shared electric kick scooters, better known as e-scooters, are a popular means of transport for last-mile mobility in urban areas. Using them can be fun, and their use is environment-friendly, since they are electrically operated without direct CO2 emission. On the other side, they have a tendency to block walkways and may produce visual pollution.
Usually, e-scooters are operated with the help of mobile phone apps, that allow their owners to localize e-scooters in their vicinity, to unlock them, and to pay. You should create a system for handling e-scooters, that adds some new interesting features for the use of e-scooters. For that, you should program components for the e-scooters and the apps. Depending on your ideas, you may also add more components.
You will receive two Raspberry Pi computers, one of them with a Sense HAT. With these you could simulate for instance the control unit of an e-scooter.
In the last year, there was some discussion about, how many features a project should realize. Of course, that depends heavily on the complexity of the particular features. However, if you manage to realize three to four use cases at the sea level, preferably those that have some logical relationships with each other, you should be fine. Feel free to discuss the outline of the semester project on the discussion forum, we will refine the guidelines as we learn more together.
Apart from being related to handling of e-scooters, you have a lot of freedom. In the following, you will find some ideas for possible new features:
- Could there be possibilities to reserve an e-scooter and, if yes, in which way?
- In contrast to shared bicycles, e-scooters have no fixed place, where they are stored, and where they can be recharged. Can that be changed by, for instance, placing charging stations ahead of popular places like university lecture halls? Users that place the e-scooters at such loading stations, could be rewarded by lower fees.
- Has your team any ideas to reduce the problem with blocking walkways or causing visual pollution?