What Can MVD Detect?
What Can MVD Detect in Schools?
A high school in rural Victoria suspected students were vaping. The school had received a lot of anecdotal evidence from students of vaping occurring in certain bathrooms. This made certain areas of the school effectively ‘no go zones’ for students who did not vape and did not want to be exposed to vaping. It was also leading to an increased incidence of conflict between vaping and non-vaping students. The school was concerned about the wellbeing of all students and wanted to create a safer environment. They had no way however, to clearly identify who was vaping, when or where it was happening making tackling the issue very difficult. The school had CCTV cameras installed, however with no way of knowing exactly when vaping was occurring, the footage from the cameras did not tell them anything, as students tended to vape in hidden areas such as toilet blocks, out of the line of sight of cameras.
Challenges and Solution
To give visibility of when, where vaping was occurring, the school introduced My Vape Defense Air Quality Monitor and Noise detectors that detect vapor produced by e-cigarettes or vapes. Also, as the school later discovered, it has many other advantages such as being able to detect other chemicals, noise and temperature variations. The detector functions by sending an alert once air quality has changed. Therefore, the end user can see what is happening and where it is happening as it works well in hidden areas as it is very discreet. MVD and VSP both have highly technical expertise that will design your solution bespoke to your needs.
In this specific case, the design of the toilet cubicles, had floor to ceiling walls, and no urinals, which meant that each individual toilet had to have its own individual detector installed above it. As there were 18 toilets, the school’s System Integrator, Integration Edge installed 18 detectors.
An expected challenge from the site came from completing the wiring connection between the toilet blocks and the communications room which was quite a distance away. Fortunately, the MVD architecture overcomes this as it allows for each detector to be wired in a daisy chain structure using RS485 cable, as opposed to other brands which require every detector to be wired individually back to the comms room, meaning only two cables needed to be run back to the comms room (one for each gateway device, rather than one for each detector). It in turn meant that the installation could be performed quickly and effectively.
Results – Expected and Unexpected
The detector ended up detecting more than just vape.
The first vape incident occurred in just 30 minutes of the solution going live. Therefore, the system achieved the desired result almost immediately. As a result the school was able to identify where, when and who were vaping and address the issue directly with clear and irrefutable evidence from the MVD portal and CCTV footage. This in turn eliminated vaping in the bathrooms, creating a safer environment for all students.
However, MVD can detect more than vape.
Twice a week the detectors in one toilet block were showing elevated TVOC and PM levels – similar but different results to what is seen from vaping but also triggering the alerts in the portal. Once this was investigated by MVD, it turned out the vapour from the cookery class was triggering the alarms. The kitchens were located within 10 metres from the toilet block, which is close enough for detection in this case and demonstrating how effective the MVD solution can be.
Thirdly the system was also being triggered every evening after the students had gone home with each detector spiking in turn before gradually falling back to normal levels. Another investigation mission showed the cause to be the cleaning products used by the cleaners, which thankfully also proved the cleaners were doing their job and how long that work took. Therefore, this solution not only detects vapes but also chemicals, particulate matter, noise, temperature and humidity across and trigger levels for events can be defined to alert for any combination of the 9 individual sensors contained in the detector.
Solution
Integration Edge purchased and installed a total of 18 MVD Air Quality and Noise Monitors and two associated gateways. They also purchased the optional recessed mounts to reduce the possibility of vandalism/intentional damage to the units by allowing them to be mounted into the ceiling.
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