2020 was a year of change, a year of support, and a year of, well... people locked in their homes. We ended up with some of the best Design Challenge projects in a long time, including an amazing start to our most recent challenge, Design For A Cause 2021.
The general consensus of the theme for 2020 was helping others through creativity and engineering. In this roundup, I'm going to run through the winners of the challenges, and choose my favorite project of the year!
Design For A Cause 2021
We launched this challenge right before the end of the 2020. After a year with such an outcry of help, challengers will use the Arduino Nano 33 IoT to build a project that will aid others during global disasters or with their day-to-day struggles. On the date of publishing, applications are currently still open for this challenge, so submit your project idea!
1 Meter of Pi
A contest that is coming to a close shortly, the 1 Meter of Pi challenge tasked our members with growing food and plants to sustain themselves within 1m3 of space.
Sustain the World, with Infineon
Sustain The World - Design Challenge
| Grand Prize | Runner Up |
|---|---|
Ashok built a smart farming tool with the power to control BLE Mesh network, solar power, lighting control, and a water pump to always keep your plants in check! |
Smart Hydroponic System Satoshi built a fully automated hydroponic system with a user interface which controls the CO2 and air levels, as well as lighting and a smart watering system. |
Connected Cloud Challenge
We challenged members to connect their world to AWS IoT cloud services with the Cypress PSoC
6 MCU and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity.
| Grand Prize | Runner Up |
|---|---|
Super Smart Home Enrico created an in-home modification device including noise sensors, kitchen environmental control, and more. |
Intelligent Mailbox saicheong's Intelligent Mailbox can detect mail arrival and the angry dog outside using Cloud services. |
My Favorite Project of the Year
As the person behind the Design Challenges, I have the unique bonus of being able to choose my personal favorite finished project of this year. With such a range of choices it was hard, and I chose to exclude the projects from 1 Meter of Pi as the winners have not yet been chosen. The winner of my favorite project of 2020 will win an element14 swag bag.
Design Challenge Project of the year 2020!
Smart Hydroponic System, by kurama007
Satoshi built a fully functional Hydroponic Farm, with a web based monitoring interface, full Co2 Monitoring, as well as Air, Lighting, Moisture, and cooling control using Infineon hardware. The project showed a wide range of skills and a lot of ingenuity, so congratulations to you, kurama007
