Shop & Pupil Reward System For Skool ;)

[zaka100]

Well, I've became part of my school enterprise along with my tech savvy friends. I designed the logo and we've opened a tuck shop. We are making ~£350 a week so it is going well .

There are a few things I will like to work on:

1) A pupil reward system.

The school already as a reward system but it costs like £1k a year. Instead, I'll program one. It will take some time and I will have to learn sockets, the school has like a £30,000 server, I know because I am good friends with the IT technician . I will be making it in python as that is what I'm good at.

2) Reward Vouchers

This is for the tuck shop. There will be 50p, 75p and £1 vouchers. No change will be given. They all will have a unique barcode (which I have already designed) to prevent fraud. They will be scanned on a computer and automatically checks if it has been used before. I will be using an EAN barcode, I need a barcode that will be short while holding 10 integers.

3) Item Scanning

One of the big problems with the tuck shop is that it is too hard to work out our profits because we don't know how much of each product we ave sold. As a solution, I will create a program that automatically logs what has been sold on an excel file. You will also be able to scan an item with this program and will read reward vouchers.

What we need:

- A barcode scanner ~£12
- A computer - these are lying around the school - any computer will do
- Computer peripherals - E.g: monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc.

Lol I wonder what u guys would charge for this amount of work, I'm doing it for free

Any tips/suggestions? I will be providing updates on anything new.

 

[carnageX]

Use an actual database instead of an Excel sheet.

May be a good idea to make it into a web app instead of a python app, for true portability-sake (would then of course need authentication and such put in).

 

[zaka100]

Use an actual database instead of an Excel sheet.

May be a good idea to make it into a web app instead of a python app, for true portability-sake (would then of course need authentication and such put in).

Yeah, I will make a html-javascript front end with a python back end hosted on the school servers. This will be good so all the teachers will not have to install anything and it will be easy. Teachers at my school are scared of windows 10 so I will have to make everything as simple as possible.

Just one question, is it just better to not port forward and keep the service on the internal network for security or shall I just go ahead and let the teachers give reward points from home?

 

[carnageX]

Yeah, I will make a html-javascript front end with a python back end hosted on the school servers. This will be good so all the teachers will not have to install anything and it will be easy. Teachers at my school are scared of windows 10 so I will have to make everything as simple as possible.

Yep, that's why I suggested the web app. Would want to possibly look into something like AngularJS as a JS framework, and create web services in the back so that you can create a nice, light UI.

Just one question, is it just better to not port forward and keep the service on the internal network for security or shall I just go ahead and let the teachers give reward points from home?

I would say that's up to your school's security/IT department . I imagine they would give a big fat "nope" to that though.

 

[zaka100]

Yep, that's why I suggested the web app. Would want to possibly look into something like AngularJS as a JS framework, and create web services in the back so that you can create a nice, light UI.

oh yeah lol I forgot django. Is that good for what I'm doing?

Note: I need some language/ide that I can run on linux and good for OLD computers. I'm still using my spare laptop (intel pentium 4 1.7ghz, 2gb ram )

 

[zaka100]

Update:
So I've had a meeting with the senior leadership of the school and told them my plans, they seem to give the go ahead.

I've been working with AJAX and python sockets lately, I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I don't know how to handle http in the python socket module