Design Challenges 2023 - End of Year Round up
The element14 Community supports innovators and engineers in creating inventions that can make a real impact on the way people live their lives.
Design Challenges are competitions where selected Members are given product kits to create innovative solutions for some of society's biggest problems. Click on the links below to learn more about each Design Challenge.
End of 2023 Wrap up
With 5 Design challenges either opening, closing or in the wonderful build and blog period, 2023 has been an amazing year for Design Challenges.
I want to thank all of the Winners, Finishers, Challengers and most of all, the hundreds and hundreds of applicants, we literally could not do it without you.
Our Categories
Every year we like to select our favorite blogs and winners of the year to lift them up as the team behind these competitions and show the world what we think of their work, as well as giving them the ultimate design challenge bragging rights.
This year we are celebrating three categories that have been decided by the community staff.
Design Challenge Best Project
This is staff's favorite project, the idea, the build. This might not be a winner of a challenge, but its the one that stood out to us the most.
Design Challenge Best Blog Post
This is our favorite post of the year, we feel this post is well written and a great example of what a Design Challenge blog post should be.
Best Design Challenge
This is our favorite Design Challenge to run, this one is a bit of a pat on our own back but its always the challengers that make the challenge fun!
What Design Challenges did you take part in, in 2023?
Now a look back at all of the of our fun and challenging Design Challenges from 2023, you can click on them to read some of the amazing blogs.
Upcycle IoT Design Challenge In Partnership with microchip
Challengers are tasked with keeping e-waste out of our landfills with the SAM E51 Curiosity Nano EV Kit into something useful.
Winner: amgalbu's ColdCase project uses an old e-waste pc to create an IoT mini-fridge.
Little Free STEM Library by Avnet & SciTech Institute
Challengers are tasked with building or upgrading a little library to promote STEM education.
Winners: sunnyiut's Bridging the Gap: STEM Education and Health Empowerment for the Young Generation and asokfair's Secured Little Free STEM Library with Tracking and Connectivity
Summer of Green Tech
To celebrate Earth Day (22nd April 2023), we invite challengers to design a project to help preserve our planet for future generations. Plant the Seeed on Green Technology this Summer!
Winner: Alistair's Cool Wave project avoid carbon emissions created by traditional air conditioners, while still keeping you cool.
SciPi
Challengers must use any approved Raspberry Pi family products to help solve common problems that scientists might encounter during their experiments.
Winner: soldering.on's Pollinator Pollster is an automated remote monitoring system that detects pollinating insects via audio classification
Save the Bees
Challengers must use the Arduino Pro Nicla Vision board + MKR1310 to combat the issues plaguing the global bee population.
Winner: ralphjy's Bee Healthy uses sound for tracking and maintaining a healthy bee-hive.
2023 End of Year Wrap Up Winners:
Design Challenge Best Project
This is staff's favorite project, the idea, the build. This might not be a winner of a challenge, but its the one that stood out to us the most.
The staff we personally blown away by amgalbu building an entirely solar powered automated Grey Water processing system and implementing it in their house AquaFlow - Blog #1 - Introduction
This is a great real world example of a need and a project to help resolve that need.
Read about it here:
AquaFlow - Blog #1 - Introduction
AquaFlow - Blog #2 - The coarse filter
AquaFlow - Blog #3 - The sedimentation tank
AquaFlow - Blog #4 - The reed bed
AquaFlow - Blog #5 - The storage tank
AquaFlow - Blog #6 - Conclusions
Design Challenge Best Blog Posts
This is our favorite individual posts of the year, we feel these posts are well written and a great example of what a Design Challenge blog posts should be.
I want to slightly change the goal posts to highlight my favorite blogs to read this year, ntewinkel 's blogs around the Honey Bee Safe project have been fun, easy to read and never lacking in learning.
Give it a read: Honey Bee Safe
- Intro: Honey Bee Safe
- Honey Bee Safe: LoraWan First Tries
- Honey Bee Safe: LoraWan Outdoor Attempt
- Honey Bee Safe: Other Communication Options
- Honey Bee Safe: Nicla Vision First Steps
- Honey Bee Safe: Nicla Vision Again
- Honey Bee Safe: Avoiding the Pretend Ducks
- Honey Bee Safe: Reporting and Displaying Results
- Springtime Bees and Blossoms!
- Honey Bee Safe: Saving Images of Hornets
- Honey Bee Safe: Bee More Bee-like
- Honey Bee Safe: Bees, Hornets, and Blooms: rebuilding the model with bees and hornets
- Honey Bee Safe: Identifying Bees and Hornets “In The Wild”
- Honey Bee Safe: Wrapping up: Summary and Source Code
Best Design Challenge
This is our favorite Design Challenge to run, this one is a bit of a pat on our own back but its always the challengers that make the challenge fun!
Save The Bees Design Challenge was launched late in 2022 at electronica and ran through a lot of 2023.
25 Challengers, 106 Blog Posts, 297 Comments, Launched at Electronica
LLaunching with a project from mayermakes
ralphjy – USA – Bee Healthy
Ralhphjy created a LoRa WAN connected IoT Bee Monitor which collects data on a Mocked up bee hive, this project has been trained on the Sound of a healthy hive, the movement within by using the Arduino Nicla Sense and Nicla Vision. The remote node is Solar powered and uses the Things Network for communication.
Gough Lui – Australia – Bee Watch
Gough created a low power remote Bee Monitoring platfrom, with an OMRON environmental Shield, an Infrared Time of Flight Sensor, LoRA WAN communication and a light weight MQTT of telemetry. These are incredible blogs with great use of Computer Vision that is trained on the letter B, due to a lack of access to real Bee
Bee-Saving Electronics Prototype -- Episode 581
That wraps up our thoughts of 2023, to those who we have mentioned, you have full permission to brag to everyone you know, and all other readers should check out the blogs listed in each section for some great reads!
Thank you to everyone who applied for a challenge and congratulations to all the winners for all of 2023!
Happy New Year
e14Phil
