We designed and developed parts of a set of self check-in kiosks for hotels and vacation rentals. The hotel staff could leave a key and other materials in an envelope for late-arriving guests that would be released when the guest entered a unique code on the kiosk. The kiosks were touchscreen all-in-one computers connected by USB to one or two servo controller boards. The software on the kiosk was built using Microsoft Visual Studio and Arduino IDE (an open-source electronics platform). Setting up the codes for guests to enter was done on a website which also had a RESTful API for kiosks to connect to when a guest checked in.
We started working on the project by building the RESTful API and web admin for one kiosk, while the client built the kiosk and hardware. It expanded into adding the API calls into the kiosk software to allow them to connect to the API to get the data for each check-in. When there were plans to have more than two kiosks, we changed the structure of the web app to handle multiple kiosks on the same install. We could restrict those using the website to have access to only certain locations. As the original hardware and kiosk software developer stepped back, our role expanded to maintaining all the kiosk code, the kiosk computers and the servo hardware setup. Several times we went on site to diagnose, repair and replace the kiosks.
This is what the guests checking in see.
These are the two programs used for adjusting setting on the kiosks.
Here’s the admin that the front desk workers and manager use.
…and there is even a few pages for the admins to see what has been going on.
