DETI Maker Lab

DETI Maker Lab is an open university laboratory at the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI) of the University of Aveiro. Students, teachers, and staff develop electronics, telecommunications, and informatics projects using shared equipment and facilities.

The old problem

The previous lab workflow was built around a MediaWiki installation:

• Projects were created as wiki pages with hand-crafted Markdown.
• Equipment requisitions were informal, manual, and tracked inconsistently.
• Equipment inventory was maintained separately in Snipe-IT, but the two systems had no integration.
• Data was fragmented: requisition history, project state, and equipment availability lived in different places.
• There was no structured approval flow — technicians had no dedicated tool to review, approve, or reject requests.

The result was inconsistent data, difficult tracking, and a process that placed unnecessary burden on lab technicians and project leaders.

The new solution

The new system transforms the workflow from wiki-centred to project-centred.

Projects and project groups become the primary entry point. From there:

1. Users log in with their University of Aveiro SSO account.
2. Users create or join a project.
3. Users browse the equipment catalog and submit requisitions.
4. The lab technician reviews, approves, or rejects each request.
5. Approved requests reserve equipment in Snipe-IT.
6. The technician checks out the physical asset in Snipe-IT.
7. The system detects the checkout and updates the local request state.
8. The student returns the equipment.
9. The technician checks the asset back in to Snipe-IT.
10. The system detects check-in and marks the request as returned.
11. Status history and notifications preserve full traceability.

Feature summary

Feature	Description
SSO authentication	Login with University of Aveiro university credentials
Project management	Create projects, join groups, manage members
Equipment catalog	Browse, search, and filter available assets
Requisitions	Submit and track equipment requests
Technician dashboard	Approve/reject requests, manage inventory
Snipe-IT integration	Authoritative inventory sync, reservation, checkout/check-in
Status history	Full audit trail for all state transitions
Notifications	In-app alerts for request events
Mobile app	Expo/React Native app for iOS and Android
Migration tooling	Python CLI for importing legacy Wiki data

Who this documentation is for

Audience	Sections to read
Students and project members	User Guide
Lab technician	User Guide → Technician Workflow, Deployment
Supervisors / professors	Overview, User Guide
System administrators	Deployment, Maintenance
Future developers	Architecture, Developer Guide

info

The documentation is structured so each audience can read their relevant sections without reading the whole site. Start with the section most relevant to your role.