Merge pull request #129 from fau-fablab/doc-build-your-own

DOC added story stump for documentation of the terminal

doc/buildyourown/index.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+A Brief History of Cash-Acceptance
+==================================
+
+Prelude
+^^^^^^^
+
+The FAU FabLab is a universitarian grassroot FabLab at the Univeristy of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, run by
+volunteers but with partial initial funding through the university. Students and any interested party can come by and
+make use of the FabLab in their free time or for class work and research. Since the upkeep of machines and tools, as
+well as the needed materials are not financed by the university, users have to pay for usage.
+
+First Act
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+With a total of 1291 individual products for sale, you can imagine how messy it gets to handle and supervise finances
+and operations. We started with hand-labeling all products and trust users to pay the right amount into an opened cash
+box. But how could we know if somebody would steal money from the lab?
+
+Second Act
+^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Next, we added a handwritten cash journal and asked users to write down the paid amounts. But with this came extra work,
+since I had to copy that paper over to an excel sheet and check the sums, roughly twice a week. Obviously people made
+mistakes and payed a little more or less, but it always evened out over a couple of days and we did not notice any
+theft. But with 1.000+ products, how do we keep track of what is being sold, you might ask. We did not.
+You might also ask, did you not get tired of typewriting endless lists of numbers and counting cash? For sure I did!
+
+Therefore, we started implementing a touchscreen-based sales-terminal, which would replace the handwritten lists and
+know about all the 1.000+ products. It took some time, lots of python code and caffeinated drinks, but finally we had
+it. No more typing, but still all the counting of coins and bills.
+
+Third Act
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+As time progressed, we were quite happy by all the automated tabulation and statistics. Until we noticed that 100 Euros
+were missing... We never figured it out, so we must assume that it was stolen out of the open cash box. What to do?
+
+Fourth Act
+^^^^^^^^^^
+
+We already had the basic software at hand, but we needed hardware. Hardware to discourage people from stealing. Since
+weaponizing our cash box would not have been in line with the safety aspects of the Fab Charter nor the UN Declaration
+of Human Rights, we needed to take a look at less drastic measures. With a FabLab at hand, we began designing and
+building a FabATM, or for long-word-loving-germans: ein Besucherabkassiermaschinenautomat. For real: it is called
+kassenterminal, which means payment terminal.
+
+Sixth Act
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+We have built an open-soure point-of-sale terminal, which has been in everyday operation for almost a year. It counts
+coins, bills, returns change, prints official receipts and is completely capable of self-service. It tracks sales and
+will soon accept electronic payments and tell us what to restock. No more theft has been detected and endless hours of
+counting coins and typing numbers have been abolished.
+
+If you are interested in not reenacting our story, have a look at the following GitHub-projects, which contain all the
+information necessary to build your own:
+
+   * Software: https://github.com/fau-fablab/FabLabKasse
+   * Wooden case: https://github.com/fau-fablab/kassenautomat.CAD
+   * Interface circuit board: https://github.com/fau-fablab/kassenautomat.mdb-interface
+
+The cash-devices we used (for counting, verifying and returning bills and coins) are connected via an industry-standard
+interface and can be replaced with other such devices. They can also be ignored, if the use of an open cash box or a
+drop-in-only cash box (without change) is to be used. The software is already equipped for this.
+Have fun and keep your bean counters and bank accounts happy by using and helping in developing our automated cash
+system!
+
+Sequel
+^^^^^^
+
+At our university there is a class in which mobile apps are developed, called MAD (mobile application development).
+MAD developed for us an app that works together with the kassenterminal. You can select products that are stored in our
+ERP and then send them to the kassenterminal in a checkout process.
+
+The app is released as `iOS-Version <https://github.com/fau-fablab/fablab-ios>`_, as
+`Android-version <https://github.com/fau-fablab/fablab-android>`_ and as an
+`HTML-app <https://github.com/FAU-Inf2/fablab-html>`_. In the background works a
+`server-software <https://github.com/fau-fablab/app-server>`_ that handles the aggregation of the product database
+and the transfer to the kassenterminal.
+
+And since you managed to read until here, have a picture of the kassenterminal as a reward:
+
+.. image:: terminal.jpg
+
+(Unfortunately without banana for scale. However, the folder is DIN A4.)

doc/index.rst

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Contents:
    :maxdepth: 1
 
    FabLabKasse
+   buildyourown/index
 
 
 Code structure overview