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Australian company RagTagd recently launched a solution to help parents of school students track their school uniforms, each of which only costs $1.50. The RagTagd solution is to place a collection box with passive UHF RFID reading function on the school’s lost and found area, and attach a tag to the school uniform. The software on the RagTagd server will track the items in the box every day, and then send messages to parents.
The collection box has a built-in Jadak ThingMagic module and a 3G transmitter. Eugene Holdenson, the company’s co-founder, said that this solution is very simple. Neither of the founders has any RFID technology background. Both founders were only 23 years old when the company was founded in 2015. He said that this may be the beauty of this solution. The founders only need to modify the card reader and label to solve a pain point.
When Holdenson was in college, he did some voluntary work in the lost and found office of a local elementary school, and this idea came up at that time.
According to the company, lost items are a common occurrence in schools around the world. Students wear their jackets to school and often forget to take them back when they exercise on the playground. By the end of the school year, unclaimed items are usually thrown away, causing waste.
To solve this problem, Holdenson considered printing the QR code on the school uniform and then scanning it. However, QR code scanning requires additional actions by school staff, so it is inconvenient. Therefore, the company considers using UHF RFID technology. With the help of built-in card readers and tagged clothing, school employees do not need to do anything, just put the clothing in the box.
At the end of 2015, RagTagd developed the first prototype. In April 2016, a more effective version was developed and tested at Roseville Public School in New South Wales. The company attaches tags to school uniforms, and parents need to pay an additional $1.50 for the tagged items.
Using the RagTagd system, the company sews ready-made UHF RFID tags into clothing and then sells them to parents, and the tags carry a unique ID code.
Parents need to activate the label when purchasing school uniforms. There is no need to download an additional application in this process. Parents only need to send the six-character code information printed on the label to complete the pairing. The collection box is a plastic box with a built-in RFID reader and antenna. The item can directly transmit data to RagTagd’s server.
Holdenson said that the RagTagd system collects tag IDs every 24 hours. This application scenario does not have high real-time requirements. The system reads the tag once every midnight, and then the software analyzes the data. At 7:30 the next morning, the text messages will be automatically sent to the parents’ mobile phones related to these clothes. So far, the system has recovered the owners of 6,000 items.
Holdenson said that after testing at Roseville Public Schools, the company began contacting other schools. 30% of the contacts signed a technical cooperation agreement. This month, the company signed an agreement with Spartan School Supplies, Australia’s largest school uniform wholesaler, to sell school uniforms with RagTagd RFID tags.
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