Reaction All Years

BR[AI]YT is a leading artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider that assists public and private organizations in achieving their business goals by applying advanced AI techniques. With extensive experience in designing, developing, deploying, and maintaining AI solutions across a diverse range of business domains, BR[AI]YT specializes in helping small and medium-sized organizations integrate Automation, Cloud, Data Analytics, Discovery, Ethics, and Strategy into their operations.

BR[AI]YT’s engineering teams are currently working on the development of various modules aimed at creating a fully autonomous, cashier-less retail experience. The primary objective of the project is to develop neural network modules capable of detecting and tracking individuals’ movements within a physical space using multiple cameras, all while sharing data simultaneously.

Our team is focusing on a specific portion of this ambitious project, aiming to digitize receipts and invoices from multiple stores. The system must be robust enough to process images with varying intensities, shapes, and orientations and extract text and numbers accurately. Essential information includes the store’s name, the date the receipt was issued, the items purchased, and the cost of each item. The system must be smart and flexible, as input images will be highly variable.

The goal is to accurately parse information from different stores, each with unique receipt formats. Additionally, the digitization process must account for images acquired using various devices and sensors, such as smartphone cameras with distinct post-process coloring and image qualities. The system should require minimal effort from the user in terms of image quality, accommodating less-than-optimal lighting and possibly slightly blurry images. A standard for image processing must be devised to create a flexible and robust system.

This project offers numerous opportunities and applications. One potential use case is market research into consumer habits, which stores can leverage to gain a foothold in the industry. By tracking individuals’ spending habits, companies can better understand their target demographics’ behavior. Another potential application is a smartphone app that enables the general public to monitor and manage their spending habits.

By digitizing receipts for easy processing, the project aims to handle various image qualities, store formats, and extract key information effectively. The development of this innovative system will revolutionize retail experiences, offering a seamless and efficient solution for businesses and consumers alike.

There has been a noticeable surge in the demand for mental health services during the pandemic, particularly among the youth. However, the effectiveness of the mental health resources available to them on social media platforms remains unclear. The Public Health Agency of Canada recognizes this challenge and aims to gain insights into how young people access healthcare information through technology.
Our project aims to address the low utilization of the resources provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada among the youth population. Despite the availability of valuable information about youth health on their website, young people often don’t turn to the agency for support. Therefore, our study will focus on identifying ways for the Public Health Agency of Canada to connect better with young people and become a trusted source of information for their mental well-being.
Based on our secondary research, we have identified young residents of Canada aged from 18 to 24 as the target group for our focus group. This age range represents both students and young professionals in Canada. We have decided to focus on social media as the primary technology platform since it is widely used by this demographic.Our research has highlighted that mental health is a significant concern for young people. Therefore, it is the primary area of focus for our project.
Upon our research findings, we developed both quantitative and qualitative questions for our survey and semi-structured interviews. The survey focused on gathering information about the social media habits of young people. For instance, their primary use of social media platforms, their interest in mental health topics, and their willingness to learn more about mental health. We sought to understand the level of trust young people place in mental health information provided on social media and other online platforms through our semi-structured interviews. We aimed to gain insights into the reasons behind their preferences for certain sources of information, their trust in specific social media platforms, and their approach to searching for mental health information online. Additionally, we asked them about the usefulness and helpfulness of the information they found. This is to gain a comprehensive understanding of young people’s behaviours, attitudes, and perceptions towards mental health information on social media.
We recruited 490 participants to our research using social media, and 9 participants were selected for follow-up interviews. After analysis, we developed insights and recommendations based on what we found in our research.
Based on our research, we discovered that young people seek emotional support from their peers, while relying on mental health professionals for reliable information. To address this, we have developed an AI mentor that provides both emotional and professional support on social media. Our goal is to build trust with young people and create a safe and open environment where they can easily share their experiences. The AI mentor can also share positive thoughts, tips, or experiences and provide links to the PHAC’s website for easy access to more information.
We also worked on the PHAC’s website design, to enrich the format, and make it more attractive to youth. We are confident that our research and findings will provide a valuable contribution to improving public health information access for Canadian youth.

Manure from a digestion plant has been sampled with a viable substrate (wood chips) in order to promote/quantify the biomethane potential of the bottles of manure. In a closed system an anaerobic setting allows microbes to consume carbon sources to produce energy rich gases such as methane.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is old news, right? That’s what we heard from the literature and from our research speaking with recent Canadian home buyers. In general, people are aware of the colourless, odourless, toxic gas. So why study it?

Well… Awareness is only one piece of a concept that is of special interest to public health organizations today: literacy. In particular, health data literacy (HDL) refers to the ability to read and understand health data—statistics, quotes, infographics, etc.—and to apply them to one’s health-related decision making. HDL includes the capacity to determine the credibility of a source and to critique false and/or misleading information. It is a complex skill beyond mere awareness.

Our client, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), approached us with the prompt to understand the challenges to raising HDL and to identify opportunities for improving access to literacy-raising initiatives.

Consulting the literature enlightened us on one challenge: the many facets of literacy. It also told us that literacy is the responsibility of not just individuals but society at large. It is mediated by one’s unique health beliefs, tapping into things like perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy. To ensure a feasible, scalable project outcome, we narrowed the scope from HDL in general to one that had value for our client and that was accessible to us: residential carbon monoxide. As our interview data would later validate, our suspicion that preventive actions toward CO were lacking made this an excellent case study for exploring HDL.

We designed a mixed methods study comprising an online survey, interviews with recent home buyers, and subject matter expert (SME) interviews. This approach allowed us to paint a fuller picture with both quantitative and qualitative data, and both lived experience and professional expertise. In total, we had 139 survey responses, 13 participants, and 4 SMEs, spanning different demographics. While we cannot claim that our research represents the entirety of Canada, it provides groundwork that can be scaled to larger, more varied populations.

Through this research, we explored homeowners’ knowledge of carbon monoxide (both self-reported and objective knowledge) and learned of their information sources, their risk perceptions, whether they had taken any precautions against CO at home, and what influenced their behaviours. Emerging themes (which presented both challenges and opportunities) included a reliance on professionals, the importance of context, and the mindset that “seeing is believing.”

From these insights, we developed tools in the form of experience principles, how-might-we statements, and a journey map) that bridged our problem space and solution (design) space. We propose two interventions: (1) a carbon monoxide safety challenge for school children and their families, delivered through fire education services, and (2) an appliance tagging system, conducted by home service technicians as a part of home maintenance visits. Both involve people beyond the homeowners themselves, both are designed to have emotional resonance, and both are a strong attempt to make the invisible visible—all important considerations for a future health data literacy initiative.

Ontario homeowners complain about the complexity and obscureness of obtaining information on how to reduce their carbon emissions and monthly energy bills via eligible retrofits and how to qualify for grant amounts provided by NRCan. Our application, EnerPik, aims to solve this by being a “one-stop-shop” for all users involved.

We at StackLabs, comprised of Tyler Griffin (Team Lead), Jasreet Kaur (Development Lead), Ksenia Chornokondratenko (UX Lead), Yasir Elamin (Developer), Jay Jao (Developer, Designer), Alex Oestreicher (Developer), and Sai Charan (Developer), worked cooperatively with our client to achieve his vision of an accessible, minimalistic cross-platform mobile application that not only connects both homeowners and contractors, but guides homeowners through its knowledge base to qualify for eligible grants.

Our team prioritizes reliability, innovation, and teamwork as core values, and we have incorporated these values into the development process of the application. We conducted thorough testing and took into account our client’s preferences and requirements to ensure that the application meets their wants and needs.

With EnerPik, homeowners can learn about energy-efficient retrofits with or without an EnerGuide pre-audit, track their progress with a step-by-step checklist of retrofits needed to qualify for grants, and connect with reputable contractors to carry out their retrofits.

For contractors, EnerPik provides a unique opportunity to access a new customer base of Ontario homeowners who are committed to reducing their carbon footprint and energy bills, and showcase their expertise in energy-efficient retrofits.

Through our innovative platform, homeowners can access information about energy-efficient retrofits, including which retrofits are most effective and which contractors are reputable. Our easy-to-use interface guides homeowners through the retrofit process, so they can feel confident in their decisions and track their progress along the way.

We built our design with figma based on feedback from user testing. To implement this front end, we used React and Tailwind with GitHub for concurrent processing. On EnerPik’s back-end, AWS and its many services were used for a seamless user experience. API Gateway facilitated communication between EnerPik and AWS, while Amazon Cognito secured sensitive data access. AWS Lambda processed user requests for real-time updates via API Gateway. User data was stored in S3 and MongoDB Atlas and AWS Textract enabled easy data extraction from uploaded EnerGuides.

With our project’s MVP phase nearing its end, we can confidently say that this was the most ambitious project we have had the opportunity to collaborate on.

We wish to extend our appreciation to Shakir Ismail, our esteemed client, for the opportunity to contribute to this project. We also express our profound gratitude to our applied project professors, Adam Robillard and Adesh Shah at Algonquin College, for their diligent guidance in navigating these challenging times.

Our proposal is to create an autonomous unloading, loading and storage vehicle that will transport shipping container safely through storage yards.
Process:
General
• Floor plan/Scaling.
• Create the frame of the cart.
Robotics Course
• Create/install an input and output box for FANUC Arm.
• Create/install an end effect for the FANUC Arm.
• Create/scale the movement of the demonstration block and cart space.
• Program FANUC Arm.
Micro-Controller & Interfacing/Programming
• Setup Arduino.
• Program the driving motor.
• Program the steering motor.
• Program sensor (Proxy to detect block in Cart)
• Line following sensor.
SCARA Robot
• Create SCARA in SolidWorks.
• Create Assembly in SolidWorks.
• Print Components.
• Assemble.
• Use Arduino to program the movement of the SCARA using a stepper motor.
• Create end effect with pneumatics.