Departmental Equipment Issue & Return Register

Every engineering department lab runs a lending counter: students borrow test instruments and kits for practicals and mini-projects, and return them days later. The traditional system is a paper register at the lab assistant's desk — entries are scribbled, due dates are remembered loosely, and overdue equipment surfaces only when someone else needs it and it is not on the shelf. Fines, where they exist, are computed by hand and rarely collected. The result is lost equipment, silent hoarding, and friction between students and lab staff. This project builds LabLedger, a digital issue-and-return register for a department lab. It replaces the paper book with a live register: each issue gets an entry number, equipment, student, issue date, due date and status. Overdue items accrue fines at a configured daily rate, the lab in-charge sees overdue and due-today panels with one-click reminders, and an equipment catalogue keeps live availability and condition per item so students know what is actually on the shelf before they ask.

1. The lab in-charge sets up the semester register: equipment catalogue with quantities, categories, condition, fine per day and maximum issue period.
2. When a student borrows equipment, the in-charge creates an entry with the item, student details, issue date and computed due date; the item's available count drops.
3. On return, the entry is closed with the return date; the available count rises and any fine is settled or recorded.
4. Each day the overdue engine scans open entries past their due date, flags them, accrues fines at the configured rate, and queues reminders to the student and in-charge.
5. The due-today panel lists everything returnable by closing time so the counter can chase returns proactively.
6. Items flagged under repair are excluded from issue until cleared by the lab assistant, keeping broken stock out of circulation.
7. Overdues beyond the escalation threshold auto-escalate to the HOD with the student's fine ledger attached.

Tech stack:

• HTML5 · CSS3 · vanilla JavaScript (ES6)
• Single-file front-end app (no build step)
• browser localStorage persistence
• Status-badge + progress-bar UI components
• Responsive CSS Grid/Flexbox layout
• Date-arithmetic fine engine

• [Live issue register] Every issue is logged with a sequential entry number, equipment, student name with class and roll number, issue date, due date and status — latest entries first.
• [Overdue engine with fines] Items past their due date are flagged automatically and fines accrue at a configured daily rate (₹10/day in the demo), with a running fine-pending total.
• [Due-today panel] The lab in-charge sees exactly what must come back by closing time (5:30 PM in the demo), so end-of-day collection is a checklist, not a hunt.
• [Equipment catalogue] All equipment grouped in categories with available/total counts and condition badges (Good/Fair), plus an under-repair flag that excludes broken items from issue.
• [One-click reminders] Each overdue row carries a send-reminder action, and the demo models daily auto-emails to the student and the lab in-charge until return.
• [HOD escalation rule] Overdues beyond 14 days auto-escalate to the HOD with the student's fine ledger attached — a policy rule encoded in the app, not enforced by memory.
• [Student and reports views] Student records aggregate each borrower's history, and reports summarize issues, overdues and fines for the semester register.

• Complete LabLedger web app source code (single-file HTML/CSS/JS)
• Seeded demo dataset (equipment catalogue, register entries, students)
• Project report PDF (background, data model, fine/escalation rules, methodology, screenshots)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document
• User manual for the lab in-charge
• Installation/deployment guide