Team OneBeep

Team OneBeep won the National Imagine Cup 2010 Finals on 30th
April in Auckland,New Zealand. They are a team of 4 Engineering
students from the University Of Auckland. They will now
represent New Zealand at Warsaw, Poland against over 140 teams
from other countries in the first week of July.
They have devised a way of delivering digital educational content over
conventional radio waves. This method can be used to transmit over
very long ranges for very minimal costs.
The team overcame some stiff competition from 3 other local teams to emerge victorious.
Coming in second was Team Enpeda from the University of Auckland. They have devised a working prototype of a computer controlled driver assistance system. It uses a cell phone camera and is able to detect the road environment ahead and warn drivers if they stray off course and into danger.
Third were Team eUtopia from the University of Waikato who came up with a live video distribution service that links conservation organisations to the public and allows for remote monitoring, private research and even surveillance of animals.
Fourth was Team Vital Link from the University of Auckland who were tackling the issue of poverty, in particular, fair trade for artisans in impoverished countries whose handicrafts are often undervalued.
Team and Motivation
Team OneBeep consists of 4 undergraduates from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University Of Auckland as at May 2010.
Vinny Jeet - 4th Year Computer Systems Engineering (Leader)
Kayo Lakadia - 4th Year Computer Systems Engineering
Chanyeol Yoo - 4th Year Computer Systems Engineering
Steve Ward - 4th Year Electrical and Electronic Engineering
With just one year left in their Bachelors Degree, the team wanted to be a part of something big, to make a difference. What better way to do it than participate in the world's biggest technology competition, the Imagine Cup Software Design Challenge.
Thus began our journey in October 2009, brainstorming ideas which align with the competition's theme- Use Technology to Solve the World's Toughest Issues.
Over the next few weeks, they researched plenty of possible ideas which could be molded into potential winners. Using the UN Millennium Development Goals as a template for basing the ideas around, they decided it would be best to aim for Universal Primary Education. While poverty, maternal health, environmental sustainability are all great causes, education was singled out as being the foundation to them all. After a painstaking two weeks, the team finally decided to pursue a method of broadcasting digital data over conventional radio waves.
The team idea also been tested out on a Full AM radio network in New Zealand with the help of Radio Network NZ.
Problem
Since November 2002, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program, a
non-profit organization, has been set up to oversee the creation of an
affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its
mission is "to create educational opportunities for the world's
poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost,
low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for
collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning."
Currently, 1.4 million of these laptops are in operation around some
of the most digitally disconnected parts of the world including
Nigeria, Peru, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Ghana, Columbia, Sierra Leone,
Rwanda and the Pacific Islands. Plans are currently underway to deploy
these laptops in many more countries which have shown interest in the
pilot programmes run by the OLPC.
The challenge arises when once these laptops have been distributed,
there is no way to get fresh material on them. Important material such
as health information and native language educational content in most
cases eludes the common man. Most of these places are remote cities
without the standard broadband, Wi-Fi, or satellite connection, which
means other methods must be employed for data transfer. The laptops are digitally disconnected.
Solution
Initially, an external usb plugin hardware was created to receive the data from the radio. But this idea was not feasible as the target market was remote communities where cost was critical. The solution - to use a widely spread, commonly used technology which everyone has access to. The infrastructure already exists so immediately the costs of our system are reduced considerably. Radio broadcasting meets all of these requirements. Radio is cheap, reliable, and available everywhere.
Through the power of Radio and the power of the OneBeep software, these laptops can now be updated. The OneBeep Publisher software at the transmission end converts digital files into their binary equivalent - ‘beeps’ of information - and this is now ready to be broadcast over the radio network as either an AM or FM transmission. The file is played over the public radio network. The receiver can be any handheld radio with a cable connection between the audio jack outputs of the OLPC laptop and the radio itself. The OneBeep Library software at the receiver will convert the information back into a digital file of the same nature as its origin. The intention is that local governments, NGOs will use our solution to broadcast educational material, specifically native language content which is currently lacking in these remote areas. Additionally, our system can be used to raise awareness and provide solutions to tackle some critical health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and typhoid.
How to make this a reality
Thanks to Radio Networks NZ Ltd. and in particular Mr.Peter Casey, Team OneBeep had a chance to test our solution on an AM radio station. The test was very successful, the team achieved speeds of nearly 100bps and are continually improving every week. They are now confident of having reached stability from an engineering point of view.
More Info
The Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s largest technology competition. It challenges students with engineering, software or technical backgrounds to develop solutions to the globe’s toughest problems.
“Throughout the competition we’ve seen many great ideas, but Team One Beep’s stood out as the best of the best,” said Scott Wylie, Director of the Developer and Platform Group for Microsoft New Zealand and sponsor of the Imagine Cup. “Their project was the most well-developed, reasoned and emblematic of our theme, based on the UN millennium development goals: to solve the world’s toughest problems with technology.”

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