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A group of students from the Degree in Computer Engineering at Universidade de Aveiro (UAveiro) has created a management system that uses NFC wristbands as an interaction tool to effectively identify and manage participants at events. Entitled FlexiGather, it links the wristbands to the different participants via a platform and was put into practice for the first time last summer at ACANUC’24, the camp of the Barcelos branch of the National Scout Corps.

The initial idea was proposed by student Tiago Gomes, but the FlexiGather system was the result of a joint effort by a group of colleagues also made up of Roberto Castro, Sara Almeida, Maria Abrunhosa and Marta Inácio. Together they developed the idea as part of the Informatics Project curricular unit of the Degree in Informatics Engineering. After the final presentation of the work, Tiago, Roberto and Sara continued to work on the project to ensure that the system was functional and fully adapted for ACANUC Barcelos 2024.

“The idea came up as a joke, at the coffee table,” explained Tiago, adding: “We got together with Professor Joaquim Sousa Pinto who agreed and helped us a lot and enriched the work, which was accepted by the course panel.” The group obtained the maximum mark of 20 with this project.

Thus, all of the 1,200 or so scouts who took part in ACANUC’24 in Barcelos wore a wristband with an NFC tag “very similar to the one used at music festivals”. The little wrist plate is associated with a platform that has six different interfaces, three web interfaces with management dashboards and three applications for mobile devices to control events. The FlexiGather project allows interaction and operation via any mobile device with NFC reading capabilities.

Tiago, also a scout, says that the new technologies “worked perfectly and were a success”, since the wristband made it possible to manage the whole event “much more quickly and efficiently and to know at every moment if something was missing or if support was needed”.

In practice, the group created an integrated system with functionalities for participants, staff and the organization, in order to manage the event as a whole. “The system has several functions, but through the bracelet each scout has their own data associated with it and we can record and manage, for example, entries and exits to venues or events, purchases, medical information, locations and times of activities. In other words, we have a vast amount of information about each participant in the camp, naturally with the permission of the parents and the event leaders,” he explained.

ACANUC’24 allowed us to verify that the system “worked perfectly, since there were no errors or stress, and we managed to beat all the time records for registering participants, among many other very positive aspects,” Tiago points out.

In the future, it will be necessary to improve “direct access to the past occurrences of each scout in the infirmary, allowing quick consultation without the need for time-consuming searches”. The platform already automatically sends a notification email to those responsible in the event of incidents. With this improvement, FlexiGather is expected to become even more efficient for future scout camps, or any other large event that requires control of the participants.