Anyone can access a heart rate monitor web application from their mobile device, and see their heart beat on the Pausch Bridge in real time.
The Pausch Bridge was created as both a metaphorical and physical connection between the School of Drama and the School of Computer Science. Regardless of discipline, every Carnegie Mellon student knows the saying, "My Heart is in the Work." In this lighting display, we join the campus by displaying everyone's heartbeat on the bridge. When enough users connect to our heartbeat display, every panel on the bridge will pulse in unison, showcasing the harmony that ensues when we come together for a common purpose.
This project is split into two distinct parts: The Python-based websocket server, and the ReactJS-based heart rate client.
The server accepts real-time heart beat information from clients, and displays the light show on the bridge. It also includes a simulator to visualize the light show without access to the bridge itself.
The client uses browser Javascript APIs to access the camera, and do the image processing needed to detect heart beats. It sends them to the server in real time.
This might be tricky. In order to access the camera through Javascript in
modern browsers, all remote connections must be secured with HTTPS, which means
this server will need to run with HTTPS. So you'll have to (1) get a domain,
(2) get an HTTPS certificate (Let's Encrypt works well for this), (3) move the
certificate to the Pausch Bridge server, and (4) run ./server/main.py. Running
main.py --help gives all the information needed to configure the server at
runtime.
The client was bootstrapped with create-react-app. Run npm run build under
./client/ to compile the ReactJS project, then serve the contents of
./client/build/ on a static web server somewhere. This server will also need
HTTPS. Don't forget to change the server domain constant in
./client/HRClient.js if you use another domain name.