AirQuiz: A Local-Area Network Assessment Platform

In the face of unpredictable internet stability, a Technical Lab Instructor in Annaba, Algeria, engineered AirQuiz, a local-area network (LAN) assessment platform that operates with zero external connectivity. This innovative solution, created during a critical exam setup, highlights the importance of understanding network fundamentals and utilizing local LAN architecture.

Overcoming Internet Instability

During a final exam setup for 45 students, the campus ISP dropped completely. Salah Eddine Medkour, the instructor, realized that a standard "cloud-first" deployment was a single point of failure. To avoid this, he needed a system that ran entirely on local hardware.

Hardware Setup

With no budget for enterprise servers, Medkour repurposed his personal equipment to build a dedicated local node. The server was his ThinkPad, with the NVMe storage being the most critical component due to its fast disk I/O. A spare router was isolated from the campus network, configured with a static IP for the ThinkPad and a strict DHCP pool for the student devices.

The Stack: Python and React

Prioritizing low overhead and high concurrency over ease of development, Medkour chose FastAPI for the backend and React for the frontend. FastAPI's asynchronous request handling allowed it to handle concurrent connections without latency, while React's auto-loading feature reduced network traffic significantly.

Preventing Data Integrity Issues

The biggest technical risk was data integrity during the "submit" event. To prevent potential race conditions or duplicate submissions, the backend checks for existing submissions and calculates scores in-memory before committing to SQLite.

Success and Implications

AirQuiz was successfully deployed for over 180 students across four separate exam sessions, with a 100% uptime, consistently low latency, and significantly reduced administrative work due to the auto-grading feature.

This project underscores the importance of understanding network fundamentals, even in the age of modern cloud frameworks. By respecting the constraints of the environment and utilizing local LAN architecture, Medkour ensured a fair and stable exam environment for his students.

The North East region of India, like many regions with developing internet infrastructure, can benefit from solutions like AirQuiz. By leveraging local resources and understanding network constraints, educators can create robust, reliable, and efficient systems for teaching and learning.