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  • Author Author: CharlesGantt
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Sci Fi Your Pi Design Challenge Wrap-Up

CharlesGantt

This past week finished up the Sci Fi Your Pi Design Challenge, and we saw a mass influx of final project updates being posted. Following the spirit of my Weekly Design Challenge Summary post, I wanted to make a post that would wrap up the Sci Fi Your Pi Design Challenge and showcase some of my favorite projects.

 

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To get started let’s take a quick look at each of the 25 Sci Fi Your Pi projects that captivated our imagination and inspired us over the last several months.

 

  • Project: Rover Pi Protector - Brenda Armour ( ) got off to a rough start with Rover Pi Protector after falling victim to a freak accident in her garage which resulted in some badly hurt arms. She did not let that stop her though, and in the end Rover Pi Protector was a success.
  • Project: Prince Dakkar's patent log taking chart compass - Neil Bizzell ( ) cut it close with this project after life got in the way for most of the competition. However, Neil did manage to get a lot of work completed in the final week of the challenge. Neal did manage to get the GPS portion of the project up and running though, so that is a plus!
  • Project: Intelligent body Armor - Unfortunately this project by Joe Carender ( ) was destined to become a no-starter and we never saw any progress post made past two very short postings.
  • Project: Advanced Dog Trainer - This project by Vivien Chin ( vivienchin ) , while great in concept, this project was a non-starter with not a single blog post being made.
  • Project: I Ching Hexagrams - Trevor Clarke’s ( ) entry into the Sci Fi Your Pi challenge was a bit of a daunting one, but some great progress was made, and anyone who followed the updates definitely learned a thing or two. Unfortunately Trevor experienced lots of issues with the PiFaceCAD which costed him lots of valuable time.
  • Project: Escape the Past -  Eric Ellwanger ( ) set out to change the way the industrial world controls its equipment, with this project. By the end, he had managed to successfully send and receive data from an old-school PLC onto his Raspberry Pi, making it a very practical and useful project.
  • Project: Training Sphere - This was another project that got off to a late start due to its builder being part of the Enchanted Objects Challenge. Ambrogio Galbusera ( ) set out to create the ultimate training sphere that would hone Jedi skills.
  • Project: Cybernetic Computer Interface - Never before has a project with so few updates managed to crank the WOW-Factor to 11. This wearable cybernetic device by Sebastian Groza ( ) is the stuff borgs dream about!
  • Project: Picorder - Michael Hahn ( ) took Star Trek prop replication to the next level, and built his interpretation of what a TriCorder would be if it were around today! This project is one of my favorites and I recommend everyone check it out!
  • Project: C3P1 - This project was yet another no-starter with Augusto Lisbôa ( augusto.diniz.l ) only posting two short updates..
  • Project: Glove Computer & Control - Unfortunately this project never made it past the challenger announcement, and its builder deleted his user account.
  • Project: Empathy box - Despite being “really excited to begin this project,” Eric Lovejoy ( j0h ) never posted any project updates other than an intro where he talked about ordering some USB dongles and RGB LEDs for the project.
  • Project: Meditech - Enrico Miglino ( ) knocked the ball out of the park with this medical-based project. With well over 20 updates, Meditech, is one of the most thoroughly documented, well written, and completed projects of the entire challenge. I highly suggest everyone take a few hours and read through this entire project!
  • Project: Knight Rider - This project by Wilson Oberholzer ( ) only saw a few updates.
  • Project: PizzaPi - Margot Paez ( ) set out to change the way pizza is delivered, and the end result is nothing short of amazing. This was one of the more regularly updated projects, and Margot’s enthusiasm and dedication to the project really shown through.
  • Project: Visus Sancto - This project by Cecil Perks ( sirusmage ) was another non-starter.
  • Project: PipBoy Personal Helper - Arsenijs Picugins ( ) got off to a good start with two very well written blog post, but fell silent thereafter.
  • Project: PiBo - This project never made it past the first blog post by  Rajesh C ( kcrajesh ).
  • Project: Real-Life Holographic Projector - This was one of the projects that I was really excited to see progress, but unfortunately Kenny Rasschaert ( kenny_r ) did not make it past the first few post.
  • Project: Sci Fi Advanced Controls - Shrenik Shikhare  had a cool concept with this project, but unfortunately it never made it past the first post that showed off all of the hardware he received.
  • Project: Verbal & Physical Morality Monitor - This project by Harsahib Singh ( ) was a non-starter.
  • Project: VIRUS - Inderpreet Singh ( ) suffered a delay during the build of this project, but despite the setback he still managed to work up a cool project. Bonus points from me for the use of 3D printing!
  • Project: QuadCOP - was one of those projects that saw a ton of updates, and really delivered in each update! Props to Joey Thompson ( ) for writing a wonderful series of updates, and teaching me a few things along the way.
  • Project: PiDesk- Much like Meditech, PiCorder, and a few other projects, PiDesk really turned out way above what I expected. Frederick Vandenbosch ( ) built something that I can only describe as beautiful, and PiDesk is in my top three favorite projects from this design challenge
  • Project: RAED - Conceived by Jeremy Walker ( trenchleton ), this project got off to a good start, but quickly faltered when the update post stopped being posted.

 

With the projects covered I want to take a few moments to talk about my favorite top three projects. Please keep in mind that I am not a judge of this competition, and all of the projects that were submitted were amazing in their own right. These three projects are simply three of the ones that I enjoyed following the most. I truly enjoyed watching all of the projects progress, and I hope I see more from each contestant in the future.

 

Project: Meditech

 

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If Enrico Miglino ( ) set out to create one of the coolest projects that has ever been part of an Element14 Design Challenge, then he succeeded several times over. Enrico finished the core Meditech project weeks ago, and has continued posting updates ever since by building new accessories that augment the medical device. Great job Enrico!

 

 

Project: PiDesk

 

 

Frederick Vandenbosch ( ) built one of the coolest desk I have ever seen, and as I said in my Weekly Design Challenge Summary, he inspired me to build my own desk over this winter season. From the use of Neo Pixels, to the design and integration of custom touch controls, this whole project was A+ quality!

 

 

Project: PiCorder

 

I would be lying if I said that I was not a bit of a closet Trekie, and Michael Hahn’s ( ) PiCorder build really brought out the geek in me. I have loved every aspect of this build, and it has really taught me that I need to focus more on getting my projects finished rather than making them 100% aesthetically perfect. From the use of protoboard as the front and rear panels, to using component leads as point to point jumpers makes this project super cool.

 

Well that is going to wrap up my coverage of the Sci Fi Your Pi Design Challenge until the judging process begins and winners are announced. I hope everyone enjoyed this challenge as much as I did, and I can not wait to see how the Vertical Farming design challenge turn out.

  • Thanks, Charles, and thanks Element 14 for the opportunity to enter, and the other contributors for some excellent entries that I have enjoyed reading about.

     

    The I Ching project should have had a head start because the compute engine and display code had been written in OPL (Organizer Programming Language) to run on my Psion Organiser LZ64, which has a similar size display to the PiFaceCAD, but porting the code to an interpreted language like Python was far more of a challenge than I anticipated.  I also went from looking like having loads of free time when the challenge was announced to being really busy at work and losing several weekends at short notice.

     

    My project suffered because I tried to keep true to the original design concept of using the PiFaceCAD, which has some great features, but was not best suited to the solution, and I wasted a lot of time creating mechanisms to pass control reliably between interrupt driven code and background code, which are probably handled much better by standard Python constructs if i had spent a bit more time learning the language.  Python is good: it's just not intuitive to somebody who cut their teeth on Z80, 6502 and 8051 Assembly Language where you have to use self discipline and a well-designed memory map rather than rely on the language and interpreter to catch your errors for you.

     

    I tried to Blog regularly, but there is not much to write about or show when the software is flaky and is not driving the display properly.  Dropping Python code into the Blog window caused all sorts of interesting effects, none of which made the code readable :).

     

    I should have realised earlier that it would have been better to use the touch-screen display from 4D systems that I had already bought and offered a more appropriate presentation of the Hexagrams.  The main reasons that i didn't change horses are that the display has its own processor and the Challenge was called Sci Fi your Pi and using a dedicated display processor seemed like cheating and I didn't want to be learning the display processor Language and Python at the same time.

     

    All that said, it's easy to be negative when things are stacking up against you, and I did manage to write several hundred lines of new code, which I will share on Github once I have most of the kinks out of it.  I will leave the debugging code in, but commented out, so that anyone wanting to change the code for their own uses can switch messages back on when things go awry to find out where the code has become misdirected.  For those who did not catch my earlier blog post, the repository can be found at the link below.

     

    https://github.com/TaoDude/Shared_I_Ching.git

     

    Good luck to those in the running for the prize.

    Regards,

    Trevor Clarke

  • Great results for everyone who participated and as usual a top report from Charles.

  • Congratulations Charles,

    Great job of covering the challenge.

    I found it useful and interesting.

    Doug

  • in reply to CharlesGantt

    Charles

     

    Can I suggest that element14 get you to write a guide to blogging for a challenge.

    It would assist many whom have never done it before, and maybe help with understanding that it isn't a 2min exercise.

     

    I found the updates were great BUT really should be first thing Monday morning to catch everything done over the weekend.

    While it does get caught next update, that is 6 or 7 days later so tends to be dated.

     

    Most challengers work office hours, so while they might be able to do some challenge work at nights, it tends to be the weekend for blogs.

     

     

    Thanks

    Mark

  • Thank you Charles very much for the mention. I chuckled when I saw 'old school and new school' in you comments. I hope to continue with the refinement of the Picorder and produce a more "Star Trek style Tricorder" more in line with the look and feel of the toy that I currently possess. It may even include investing in a 3D printer and print my own case next time complete with SD slots for reading back pre-recorded data "discs" (SD cards) into the device. As I've commented before; its been fun to participate in the challenge an build the Picorder to a functional state. Thanks again for the weekly updates an the mention. "Warp factor 7"... or maybe"14?"