Overflow Visitor Tracker @NYU

Real-Time Room Capacity Monitor.

Summary

Every Friday, around 600 people gather for prayer at the NYU Global Center for Spiritual and Academic Life. Due to limited space and no live room availability updates, latecomers often end up praying in hallways, leading to congestion. To solve this, I developed a simple real-time room occupancy tracking system, consisting of a mobile app for volunteers and a public website for visitors.

NOTE: This project was made as part of my Major Studio 1 class project at Parsons School of Design.

Objectives

• Develop a solution that documents and shares live head counts of prayer rooms.

• Ensure the system is modular, quick to update, and minimally disruptive to existing processes.

• Allow visitors to check room capacity before arriving, reducing congestion.

• Create a system that is useful for any event requiring crowd control, not just for prayers.

Challenges

• The building is shared, so no permanent physical setup (like cameras) could be installed.

• Volunteers needed to be supported, not replaced.

• Updates had to occur in real-time with minimal delay.

• The interface had to be intuitive and simple to deploy on short notice.

My Approach

1. Understanding the Environment and Defining Constraints

Before jumping into development, I spent time understanding the dynamics of the prayer space and the limitations that came with a shared-use academic building. The system needed to be non-intrusive, easy to use, and adaptable to various types of events.

• Observed how rooms were used on Fridays and how crowd flow was managed.

• Noted the shared, non-permanent nature of the space—no installations like cameras or sensors could be placed.

• Recognized the need for a volunteer-friendly system that assisted rather than replaced human help.

2. Designing the System Architecture

I broke the solution down into two major components to streamline functionality for both volunteers and visitors: a mobile app for updating room counts and a public website for real-time viewing.

• Split functionality into two tools: mobile app (input) and public website (display).

• Chose Firebase as the real-time backend database for syncing updates instantly.

• Ensured the app could read and write data, while the website remained read-only for security and clarity.

3. Developing the Mobile App

The mobile app needed to be intuitive and efficient for volunteers to update room occupancy on the go, without needing technical training.

• Built the app using React Native for cross-platform functionality.

• Allowed volunteers to add rooms, set capacities, and update headcounts in real-time.

• Included a swipe gesture to delete rooms, making it flexible and scalable.

4. Building the Website for Public Access

Visitors needed an easy way to check room availability before arriving—so I created a clean, mobile-friendly website that reflected the live data from Firebase.

• Developed the front-end using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

• Made the site mobile-responsive to suit on-the-go visitors.

• Fetched data from Firebase to reflect real-time room statuses without refresh delays.

Results

• Successfully deployed during a Friday prayer session.

• Volunteers found the app significantly improved their coordination.

• Reduced reliance on mechanical counters, which were in limited supply.

• Visitors had a smoother experience and were able to plan better.

• The system was praised for being flexible, scalable, and usable for any kind of event.

Community Reaction

Conclusion

This project grounded my technical skills in a real-world context and allowed me to solve a community issue I’d personally experienced. I was proud to develop a solution that was low-cost, volunteer-friendly, and widely applicable. In the future, I’d like to refine the user interface, incorporate elegant animations, and explore security layers and computer vision enhancements that continue to assist, not replace, human effort.