Upcycle It Winners Announcement

We are very happy to announce the winners of the Upcycle It Design Challenge.

Grand Prize Winner

Carmelito upcycled a mirrored clock into a truly functional household IoT Hub.

He used the Intel Edison to:

• Check weather, check it against criteria then display a notification via a custom 3D printed diffusion panel.
• Check the traffic based on Google Maps Distance Matrix API to warn him if he has to leave early.
• Follow a hashtag on twitter and warn him if that hashtag has been used more than 5 times in a day.
• Display email notifications.
• Monitor and display environmental values such as Air Quality and Temperature.
• Make the clock speak and read some of the values mentioned.
• Upload his data to a cloud database solution.
• Manage the notification LEDs and LCD screen.

The judges were impressed with the use of fabrication techniques used, such as 3D printing using a wood based filament and then staining it along with the rest of the wooden frame.  Camelito's consistent build blogs are of the highest quality to go along with a top class IoT project, This is why he clinched the top spot.

Carmelito's Prizes

• Keithley  DMM7510DMM7510 Digital Multimeter
• Dremel 4000 MultiTool Kit
• Weller Digital Soldering Station

Runner Up Winner

Jason upcycled the APC AP9211, a Power Distribution Unit (PDU) produced in 1999 into a functional modern IoT Power Distribution Unit.

He used the Intel Edison to:

• Manage a custom, responsive web interface to control the relays with a modern handheld device.
• Replace  RS-232RS-232 serial and SNMP with MQTT to transmit the commands quickl.
• Make control of the device wireless.
• Communicate with his home hub to manage temperature and lights.
• Display graphs of the captured data.

The judges were impressed with his prototyping, the use of MQTT to control something physical, and NodeRed to tie it all together.
They also felt that he designed a highly marketable project that they could see on the shelves of their local electronics store.
Jason's blogs described the whole process, victories and challenges as well as providing the detailed code involved.

Jason's Prizes

• Motorola Moto 360 Watch
• Dremel 4000 MultiTool Kit
• Emulation Technology  ET-413ET-413 USB 2MP Pen Microscope
• Weller Digital Soldering Station

Third Place Winner

Gerrit upcycled Electomatic’s Impulszähler EZK impulse counter (and its beautiful nixie tubes) into a web scraped value display device.

Although the data displayed is relatively simple, the method for gathering and displaying information really caught the judges' imagination.

He used the Intel Edison to:

• Find and Display Time, Date, Temperature, Humidity and Pressure.
• Find and Display Ran Vol in the last 3 hours.
• Scrape and display Blog Views and Likes.
• Control a custom PCB board that interfaces with the Nixie Tube controller.
• Control I2C Node Red Module.
• Make the display speak with a connected Wireless Bluetooth speaker.

The judges were impressed with Gerrit creating his own PCBs to interface the Edison and the nixie tube controller. Gerrit's blogs are very well written and feature lots of great videos and pictures of the process. The judges loved the concept of taking such a beautiful old technology, like nixie tubes, and hacking into them to display (and speak) up to date information from the Internet.

Gerrit's Prizes:

• Marshal Touch Screen Smart Watch
• Dremel 4000 MultiTool Kit
• Weller Digital Soldering Station

Thank you and congratulations to the winners of the Upcycle It Design Challenge.