This summer, the Downtown Anacortes Alliance partnered with Black Box Robotics — a team of talented Anacortes High School students — to explore a big question: when and how do people actually come downtown?
The students designed and built custom door-mounted devices that track entries in and out of shops. Six downtown businesses volunteered to pilot the program, and while propped-open doors limited consistent tracking, we gathered clear data from three locations. Even with that small sample, the results are already helping us think differently about how to support downtown.
What We Learned
- Local’s Pass shows promise. During the first week of the Locals Pass promotion in September, weekend traffic across the three tracked businesses rose 42% on Sunday and overall traffic rose about 10%. While it’s just two weeks of data — with back-to-school and other factors also at play — it hints that promotions can make a real difference.
- Sundays are under-realized. In the off-season, Sundays see the steepest drop in traffic (-34% from August to September). Historically, few shops opened on Sundays, but now at least 16 are. The Downtown Anacortes Alliance will begin exploring promotional campaigns to let locals know that many downtown businesses are open Sunday.
- Weekdays matter. September’s data for these businesses showed 71% of traffic happening on weekdays. In fact, one shop even had stronger weekday numbers in the off-season than in the peak of summer.
- Events work. The Open Streets event boosted Sunday traffic for one shop by 27%, countering the idea that street closures always hurt business. The Arts Festival also spiked Sunday traffic at one participating store by 187%.
How We’ll Use This
- Plan promotions that shine a light on Sundays — both in summer and the off-season.
- Continue to pair events with retail activation, since the numbers show they work.
- Support merchants with data-driven insights on hours, merchandising, and promotions.
Sharing the Tools
This project wasn’t just about data — it was also about building community capacity. The sensors, code, and instructions are now available for other small towns to replicate. Each box costs less than $35. All you need is:
- A list of parts to order
- 3D-printer files to make the case
- Step-by-step instructions
- Code that you can use to get started
- And a local robotics team ready to put their skills to work
You can download all of this in this DropBox folder.
These open-source resources make it possible for any Main Street organization to learn about downtown traffic while giving students hands-on engineering experience.
Mutual Gratitude
We’re deeply grateful to Anacortes High School senior Angus Edelman and the Black Box Robotics team for their innovation, energy, and community spirit. They’ll be presenting this project at the Washington State PLACES Conference this fall, sharing Anacortes’ creativity with Main Street leaders across the state.
And the gratitude flows both ways. The students are thankful to our downtown businesses for welcoming them, sharing their experiences, and helping them learn more about what it takes to run a business. A special thanks goes to Joanie Schwartz at MoonWater Arts, who invited the team to raise money for their upcoming robotics season during September’s First Friday Art Walk — a perfect example of how collaboration makes our community stronger.
