The Ideation
One of UniKey’s greatest assets is its employment of some of the most talented students at the University of Central Florida. While working as a test engineering intern at UniKey, Mohammad Hammad, was also wrapping up his last year of UCF’s Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) Program. This is the year a lot of our team members, who are also UCF CECS alumni, remember very well as it’s one of the most demanding years in the program. Why is that? Because this is the year seniors of the program must design and execute the infamous senior design project.
Instead of letting the project keep him from sleeping at night, Mohammad immediately began to work on it. With the help of UniKey’s mobile key platform he was able to develop his “Smart Cabinetry;” a new take on the way we store our valuables. When asked about what initially spurred the idea for his project, Mohammad stated, “I wanted to make a more convenient way to secure your belongings in your own home, since most safes, cabinets, and other mechanisms for safekeeping have always seemed to work against their users – making it a task to access their assets”. To make a system that could simplify the everyday safe, Mohammad utilized UniKey’s mobile app SDK and PbU (Powered by UniKey) module to integrate mobile access control technology into a traditional cabinet lock. “The timing could not have been more perfect, actually. I knew the PbU module was set to be released around the beginning of the semester and that it would make my project easier to develop,” he adds.
The Product
Mohammad also took this specific mobile access control based project on because he wanted to add value, not only to his project, but to UniKey as well. Leveraging several pieces of UniKey’s platform, Mohammad aimed to create a differentiated piece of technology for his project. Additionally he was looking for a way to show individuals everywhere how simple it is to use UniKey solutions to build mobile key products. “I had previous experience testing UniKey’s products, but never had a the chance to really go through the entire building and development process. Even then though, it was easy to use thanks to the provided documentation for each of the platform’s pieces.” As one person, Mohammed was able to have his smart cabinetry product perfected and ready to use in 6 months; 3 months of which were for the design, documentation, and prototyping of the project.
The Final Result
The final result of Mohammed’s senior design project was a fully automated “smart cabinet”, capable of supporting mobile access control and of course, a more convenient way to secure your personal belongings. The Smart Cabinetry also has the ability to track the location of the objects you wish to keep secure, giving users a means to monitor their items in real-time through the implementation of pressure trackers. “It also features automatic door controls and remote control capability,” Mohammad adds. To learn more about how simple it is to integrate UniKey’s platform into any traditional lock, reader, or pincode, keep an eye out for the upcoming editions of our “How it’s Made” blog series where we gain a more in-depth look at how Smart Cabinetry was made. In the meantime, visit unikey.com.
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