It’s time! First off, a huge thank you to everyone who has submitted a project, as well as everyone who has liked, commented and shown their support for all the fantastic projects.
It has been great seeing so many submissions, so much enthusiasm, and a mixture of new community members and regular members alike all taking part. This is exactly what Project14 is for.
Before we announce the winners, let’s take a quick look back at the requirements and the potential prizes.
CHALLENGE REQUIREMENTS
The challenge of the Spring Clean competition was to take an old electronics project which was started but never finished, and then complete it. Originality, innovation and technical merit are all potential factors taken into consideration. A project submission including step-by-step details, videos and images showing how something was completed all contribute to demonstrating the quality of a project.
THE PRIZES
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WINNERS
With so many great submissions, it was a very tough call for the team to decide on the winners but we did eventually arrive at a decision. So, without further ado, a big congratulations to the winners of this competition.
First Place Prize Winner
obones – Reviving the ATX Lab Supply project
Picking up where they left off fifteen years ago, obones created their own lab supply. They tracked down the parts and planning they put together previously and brought it to life using a custom PCB, 3D printing, LTspice simulations, 3D modelling and more. Despite encountering many challenges, as well as diagnosing and implementing fixes after switching it on, the build came to life and proved to be a great learning experience. I highly recommend reading the full write-up which is complete with images, videos, and a list of learnings at the end.
Second Place Prize Winners
We have three equally fantastic second place projects:
colporteur – Turn On The TV (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3)
Colporteur aimed to create a miniature TV that plays animations for an office tower being built for a model railroad. The TV uses a Pimoroni 1.3” SPI Colour Square LCD and Raspberry Pi Zero, plus a 20,000mAh power pack hidden on a floor lower down the office tower which is over three feet in height.
me_Cris – Audio toy! Or not really!
Inspired by an older electronics magazine and using a diagram from an STMicroelectronics datasheet for reference, me_Cris created an audio amplifier, designing a custom PCB in KiCAD, reusing components from other electronic boards, and 3D printing a case to bring it to life.
robogary – The Perfect Pepper!
Having previous tried growing plants from seed on their deck garden with minimal success, robogary built a monitored growing system to germinate seeds and develop robust seedlings of Aji Charapita and Aji lemon drop peppers. Well done on the germination yield of 80%.
Runner Up Prize Winners
Our three brilliant runner up prize-winning projects are:
Steven Hatcher – Sunlight Simulating Window
Steven Hatcher created an imitation Window that simulates the current sunlight of their location using an ESP32 microcontroller and WS2812B lightstrip. At dawn for example, the light produced by the WS2812B lightstrip fades in gradually as a warm orange and increases in brightness as the current time approaches sunrise. Great job on your first element14 Community competition.
kmikemoo – Tap Tap Tap
Kmikemoo built three 40dB power taps: an SO-239 version, a BNC version and an SMA version. In their own words, soldering to the SMA bulkhead connectors was by far the most challenging aspect of this project. Nice job on clearing up your workbench and having a few more pieces of test gear on the shelf now.
Jan Cumps – Vintage Dual Turntable Restoration
Taking an early 1970s turntable where “in general: nothing worked”…Jan Cumps took the turntable apart, serviced and replaced the oil in the motor, removed existing lubricants and oils, replaced them and unstuck the stuck components. Then, they replaced the stylus and phono plugs and brought the turntable back to life. It is great seeing the stacker functionality working in the final video.
All Other Projects
I also wanted to mention here all the other projects that were submitted :)
strb – Under Control!
Strb set out to achieve frequency response measurements with a bode plotter, following on from taking part in a Rohm buck converter roadtest. Their new setup allows them to get a complete acquisition with 40 points (two decades, 20 points per decade) in just under six minutes. The “project within the project” of finding the problem in the hook tip brought the project to a nice conclusion.
strb – An enclosure for the STEVAL-SMARTAG1
As part of using the above eval board as a small gadget in their house monitoring temperature and humidity, strb needed to create an enclosure for it. They settled on a design which featured a stand with a slot for inserting the SMARTAG1, using holes at the front to allow air to reach the sensors freely. A nice image on the front added some aesthetic value.
taifur – Simple Automatic Plant Watering System
Responding to the problem every plant lover has of watering plants on time, particularly when you are away from home, taifur created an inexpensive but effective plant watering system. With a great project write-up, this makes for a really nice step-by-step guide for anyone looking to recreate this.
colporteur – PiVPN thanks to E14’s Spring Clean
In this project, colporteur aimed to create a way for people to connect over the Internet to a web service on a server within the company they work at, with a Raspberry Pi using open-source protocols to create a VPN server.
dougw – E-Caliper with USB, LCD and Bluetooth Interfaces
Dougw created a homemade connector with custom spring contacts to reliably link up digital calipers to an Arduino Pro Micro with a Bluetooth module and an LCD. Very fun Star Trek-themed ‘LCARS’ look for the corresponding android app.
kmikemoo – 2 Year Antenna Project
Inspired by an magazine article, kmikemoo built a ‘fox hunting’ antenna using a yardstick. The process as they describe it themselves was “Cut. Flatten. Bend. Drill. Still too long. Repeat.” The project was a success after removing approximately three inches. Great photos of the antenna in use, hidden in a tree.
andywong1026 – Minimalist Fast Food Restaurant System
Andywong1026 recreated a fast-food restaurant order status system similar to what customers in McDonalds often see above the counter. Order numbers for orders are displayed on a screen and the system announces when orders are ready via a speaker.
robogary - Forearm Mounted Command Console
A project that was on and off the shelf several times - robogary challenged themselves to build a functional forearm mounted command console (somewhat like the Predator alien wears in the Predator movies) using a Raspberry Pi, a 7-inch TonTec HDMI TV and TP223 touch switches. Nice work using EVA foam for ergonomics on the arm enclosure, plus, nice sci-fi references
I know you will all join me in saying congratulations to our winners and also well done to everyone who took part. This was a very close-run contest with lots of great submissions. Additionally, although every project is evaluated individually on its own merits, well done to those who did some mega spring cleaning and submitted more than one project.
All of the above are just brief summaries of each project, so I strongly encourage everyone to check out all the projects if you haven’t already. Although the competition deadline has passed, if anyone has an update on their project I’d be happy to edit this post to reflect that, just DM me.
Winners, I will be reaching out soon to arrange your prizes 
Finally, with the Spring Clean competition concluded, watch out for another Project14 competition coming very soon…
The next theme will be related to one of our member-submitted theme suggestions so don’t forget to vote and submit your own suggestions for future competitions.
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