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Documents Project14 | The Holiday Special Winners: A Christmas Miracle!
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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
  • Date Created: 5 Dec 2017 3:47 AM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 7 Dec 2018 3:10 AM
  • Views 2138 views
  • Likes 13 likes
  • Comments 11 comments
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Project14 | The Holiday Special Winners: A Christmas Miracle!

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The Holiday Special

Monthly project competitions, chances to earn prizes, you decide project themes, your ideas, your projects, turn ideas into projects.

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Project14 Home
Monthly Themes
Monthly Theme Poll

 

Congratulations to jofas  for Desktop Christmas Tree,  ntewinkel  for The Clausometer Christmas Spirit Meter,  jomoenginer for FLiP Connected X-Mas Ornament  , and dwinhold  for  Infinity Living Christmas Wreath .

 

You are the winners of the  The Holiday Special  project competition from  Project14!

 

 

The Holiday Special theme was to build whatever projects that mean the holidays to you.  As all the projects featured here are great Christmas projects so its fair to say the holidays mean Christmas to most of community members, so let's go with it!

 

It was also the first Project14 project competition to offer a Grand Prize, a 3D Printer, along with a STEAM Kit of equal value to gift to an institution of your choice. Also, 3 first place winners were awarded the usual $100 Shopping Cart but this time they will be given the opportunity to gift an additional $100 Shopping Cart to gift to another member that submitted a project for Project14.

 

Some of the top projects during the competition was a really awesome Flip-Connected Christmas Ornament by  jomoenginer, a Desktop Christmas Tree by jofas , and a Clausometer by  ntewinkel. It's inspired by the Christmas movie classic, Elf:

 

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The gift to give fit the spirit of the holidays and felt like a fitting way to spread joy as we close the winter solstice, and bring warmth to an otherwise cold time of the year, especially in Chicago, especially this year. Here in Chicago we had 12 straight days of record cold to start the year, not to mention recording the coldest day on record for New Years Eve.  (I was in St. Louis and it didn't feel much different)

 

So, with that being said, there's no one better than Chicago's very own Bill Murray to remind us what the giving season is all about:

 

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Without further ado, here are your winners....

 

Grand Prize

 

Competition for the grand prize was especially tight as there were more deserving entries than there were awards to give.

 

Desktop Christmas Tree by jofas

 

Desktop Christmas Tree

 

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Fantastic variation on the LED Xmas Trees - Community Member Judge

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This project was well documented, feely very much like a tutorial.  I reaaly liked the proof video, it almost made me fell like it was still Christmas. - Community Member Judge

 

I liked the idea of a 3D Christmas tree, including a custom printed base and the tree itself. Simple, but elegant build also showed effort to create a custom made PCB and everything else to make it a "ready to be manufactured" product. I believe Joey spent many hours of learning with this project. - Community Member Judge

 

Code and schematics available. Looks really great. - Community Member Judge

 

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With a 3D printer, I would like to remake my project but with better features. You can see in my post (at the bottom) that I have an idea for how to make it better. Unfortunately, I had to use Shapeways to print this version and it was expensive! I have other project ideas that involve simple enclosures and I would rather print them at home than pay for every piece.

 

I am not sure yet what I would do with the STEAM kit. The best option seems to be to donate it to a local school but I would have to do some research to determine which school near me could use this. I know some schools have robotics clubs, they would probably benefit the most from receiving the STEAM kit.

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2018.

jofas will have a chance to remake his project with better features and we hope that he shares it with the rest of the community when he does.  His project was a small plastic Christmas tree that can sit on your desk to bring holiday cheer to your workspace. The lights have a "twinkle" effect to make your holidays even more magical.

 

This isn't the first time jofas posted a cool project on the community.  He did what I thought was one of the most interesting Upcycle It projects with his upcycled Hermes 3000 typewriter:

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Introduction to the Hermes 3000

 

[Upcycle It] Hermes 3000 - Post #2

 

[Upcycle It] Hermes 3000 - Post #3

 

[Upcycle It] Hermes 3000 - Post #4

 

[Upcycle It] Hermes 3000 - Post #5

 

Although, we never got to see the complete project, he put a lot of effort into this and did a good job of providing documentation which is a definite plus.  We hope to see what new ideas and projects that jofas works on next and how he gets along with his new 3D Printer. If he'd like to, he could also let us know how what happened with that really awesome Hermes 3000 project he worked on.  :-)

 

First Place Winners

 

This competition was extremely tight at the top and there's a good case to be made that any one of the first place winners could have been a grand prize winner.

 

As First Place Winners, ntewinkel,  jomoenginer , and dwinhold win a $100 Shopping Cart to any of our stores and can gift a shopping cart to anyone that's submitted a Project14 project this year.

 

We will be contacting them with details!

 

As you can see by judges comments, and the submissions themselves, you could make a strong case for any of these as the Grand Prize winner, but there is no question that they are deserving First Place Winners:

 

The Clausometer by ntewinkel

 

The Clausometer Christmas Spirit Meter

 

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A great implementation of a theme using some old fashioned bodgering. - Community Member Judge

 

Looks really nice, very original and in the holiday spirit, and full code and schematic described. - Community Member Judge

 

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Code available, schematic described (which pins to connect where). Well documented, and looks really great. - Community Member Judge

 

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For The Holiday Special,  ntewinkel decided to make a Clausometer, as seen in the movie Elf.  In that movie, Santa's sleigh had trouble flying due to a lack of Christmas spirit. The sleigh was equipped with a Clausometer that indicated the level of Christmas spirit around.  This version of The Clausometer uses twitter to gauge holiday spirit, and really is brilliant and worth checking this out.   This, like the following project, was especially well received.  His wife helped him with the graphics and it uses a Raspberrry Pi to move the needle!

 

 

Flip Connected X-Mas Ornament by jomoenginer

 

FLiP Connected X-Mas Ornament

 

FLiP Connected X-Mas Ornament part II

 

FLiP Connected X-Mas Ornament part III - complete

 

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Brilliant project! ...My pick for the 3D printer and STEAM is Flip-Connected. - Community Member Judge

 

 

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If I get the honor to win the 3-D Printer, I would put it to good use to create the much needed enclosures my projects are begging me to create, as well as fix some items around the house such as the broken knob on the toaster.

 

The Sam's STEAM Kit I would donate to a local school in my area that does not have the means to purchase such items for their students.

 

 

This is a Bluetooth connected Ornament that uses a Parallax FLiP board, WS2812B RGB LED Module and a Velleman HC-05 to control the color displayed in the Ornament.  The Ornament was cerated using a Clear DIY Plastic Hanging Ornament, paint, mini X-mas tree and Styrofoam for the fake snow.  The Parallax FLiP is a DIP form factor board which has a Parallax Propeller processor and was coded using their SimpleIDE in C. 

 

Communication from the FLiP with the HC-05 was performed using the fdserial library from Parallax. Remote connection is from a Raspberry Pi using BlueZ and rfcomm to create a virtual serial interface to the HC-05 and Python was used to send command line commands to control the WS2812B through the HC-05.  A Parallax Serial LCD is used just for debug purposes to ensure the commands made it to the FLiP.

 

Infinity Living Christmas Wreath by dwinhold

 

Infinity Living Christmas Wreath

 

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Unique idea for a Christmas artifact. ...the result is beautiful. - Community Member Judge

 

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If I win the grand prize I would keep the 3d printer and use it to make small toys for kids to enjoy. The SAM's STEAM KIT will be given to my sons school for their computer science class. This is a way to help many students with a single (incredible) gift.

 

Whom ever wins this challenge, the donation of the gifts is truly the spirit of the holidays!!

 

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays everyone!!

 

The Infinity Living Christmas Wreath was done as a family project. Dale made this with his kids. They wanted to make something unique and what they came up with was awesome!

 

To create the wreath they used 144 RGB LED light string, an Arduino, a Raspberry Pi, Screen, speakers, 2 pieces of one way mirror and a 12 volt transformer.  The LED strip was placed between the one way mirrors. The Arduino is used to control the LED pattern and the transformer is used to power the LED's. Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi and screen is used to display the burning log behind the mirror with speakers for fire crackling sound.

 

See what I mean,  this was a very difficult competition to judge!

 

The following projects also received votes and deserve recognition:

 

Honorable Mention

 

Project Elf House by beagles

 

Project Elf House- Complete

 

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Fantastic solution and very simple implementation. - Community Member Judge

 

Looks really nice, and the circuit was available. - Community Member Judge

 

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The idea for the elf house was hatched during a discussion amongst friends of  beagles .  He was tasked with producing a Christmas decoration using a toilet roll tube.  beagles was asked if he could add a single white LED to their project. The project being a little elf house. He did better than that...

 

Mini LED Christmas Tree by carmelito

 

Mini LED Christmas Tree

 

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The beauty of this project lies in its simplicity. - Community Member Judge

 

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It's fitting that the final project comes down to carmelito  whose had a remarkable year on the community.  First, he took home the Grand Prize for the Upcycle It Challenge when he upcycled a mirrored clock into a truly functional household IoT Hub:

 

Upcycle It Winners Announcement

 

and he's also taken home two first place finishes for Project14 projects:

 

Tilt Solar Light

 

Automated Tea Dunker

 

carmelito did this for the Cool LED Display competition but it fit both themes and still has a chance to win a shopping cart to give one of the first place winners.  This was a quick project to get the community in the festive mood.   It goes over how to  make a simple Mini LED Christmas Tree for your study table/computer desk. It's beauty is in its simplicity.

 

In Closing

 

Every project on here is a winning project and we sincerely hope you take the time to check out the blogs.  We boast the best online community for engineers in the galaxy!

 

One of the strengths of this community is its diversity, we've got great minds from all over the world that have come together with a shared love of design, engineering, and electronics. Big prizes are a way to attract new people to participate in projects but its never been what this program is about.  We've got  Design Challenges and as other members have pointed out, the bigger prizes are a reward for the effort required.

 

This program is about you, you're all different and unique, and the projects you do are as original as you.

 

Many of our members played a role in influential role in shaping this program.  A special thank you to members such as  mcb1 ,  DAB , dougw , shabaz , balearicdynamics , Workshopshed , and many other members who provided support and wisdom throughout the year.

 

Speaking for myself, this has been a learning process, and I can't think of better learning environment than here in the community, with the cumulative brain power and creativity of our members, the potential for learning is infinite!

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Top Comments

  • beagles
    beagles over 7 years ago +9
    Well done to the winners! Especially Jofas! jofas I loved taking part in this competition and very happy my project got a mention :-) Really looking forward to the next one Thanks Element14! Kaylee (Beagles…
  • koudelad
    koudelad over 7 years ago +7
    Congratulations to all, who attended. I am glad that Project14 is not about the most sophisticated design in the world, but about inspiring others by things simple to make, yet brilliant in some way.
  • dwinhold
    dwinhold over 7 years ago +7
    Congratulations to jofas on winning the grand prize!! All the submissions were great and kept in the holiday theme. I can see why the judges had a hard time choosing (Great job to them!!). I want to thank…
  • jomoenginer
    jomoenginer over 7 years ago in reply to jofas

    Hey Joey,

     

    Nice job on the Christmas Tree.  Learning to design my own PCBs is certainly on me todo list for this year.

     

    Regarding the Edison issue you ran into, I worked a bit with the Edison but had a similar issue with the Intel Galileo when using the Arduino headers on the board.  Every now and again it would just stop responding to the GPIO functions from the headers.  I am not sure if it were from the Arduino emulation they were running or something from the Linux distro on the board that was resetting the ports, but I gave up using it in that manner. You might want to look at using a RasPi or a BeagleBone Black if you need an OS on the board.  You may want to look at adding or adjusting a debounce routine for handling the input from the key board to clean up any bouncy switches. Just a suggestion.

     

    Cheers,

     

    Jon

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  • jofas
    jofas over 7 years ago

    Wow! Thank you to the judges and to all of the community members who made this a great competition! I really enjoyed seeing the different projects, I'm looking forward to seeing what people come up with for the next competition.

     

    Let me tell you about my typewriter project:
    I was able to get it working a little bit.. the Intel Edison could sometimes detect key presses, but it was very inconsistent. This was (I believe) because of the mechanical vibrations of the typewriter caused by typing. I had come up with a different "key detection" method that I thought would be more consistent, but it involved me using a little superglue - in hindsight this probably wasn't the best idea but I was running out of time. Well tragedy struck when I accidentally dropped some superglue into the joints of the typewriter! I tried cleaning it with acetone but the glue is really deep in there and I just couldn't get it unstuck. So now some of the keys of the typewriter don't work and I decided to abandon the project. Maybe some day I will get a new typewriter and try again, but in the meantime I have other projects to keep me busy.

     

    Thank you again, I can't wait to see what the element14 community comes up with next!

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  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 7 years ago

    First of all a huge Congratulations to Joey jofas - definitely a well deserved win!

    One thing that I really appreciate about your project, that I don't think was mentioned yet, is the use of 3rd parties where you didn't have your own tools available - the 3D printing and PCB creation. That's thinking outside of your own toolbox image  Also amazing work on those tiny smd components.

     

    I'm very happy and grateful to be included in the first prize selection! Thank you image  I'm honoured to be standing beside all this talent.

     

    I also second what Jon said above. An enormous Thank You to all of the hard working folks at element14, as well as to all of the judges, together creating and supporting this unique and wonderful outlet for all sorts of techy creativity. It's a joy and inspiration watching all of the projects unfold, and adding to the global knowledge base.

     

    This competition and the projects it inspired was a fun highlight in my holiday season, glad to have been part of it image

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

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  • tariq.ahmad
    tariq.ahmad over 7 years ago in reply to jomoenginer

    Thank you jomoenginer , that is one of the classiest responses I've heard for one of these winners announcement.

     

    There are some contest where there is a clear cut winner but that was certainly not the case with this one. 

     

    I walked over to rscasny 's desk, and let him know what you said.

     

    I know that it meant a great deal to him as it did for me.

     

    I will be in touch with you shortly about your shopping cart and gift to give.

     

    Your project was awesome btw, it was not an easy decision, and as far as this program is concerned, the prizes are an afterthoughts, the real reward is a diverse group of projects from different posters.

     

    This last month was really special seeing all the new people come in and I hope we can continue to see new people come in throughout the upcoming year.

     

    Watching the new project come in and seeing the different approaches, ideas people come up with, and the creativity involved in executing those ideas is what makes any effort on our part worth it.

     

    First place is a big deal, you'll also receive a shopping cart to gift to a member for a project of your choosing, in addition to the usual first place $100 shopping cart prize.

     

    That doesn't change the fact that there were multiple projects that could have easily claimed the grand prize.

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  • jomoenginer
    jomoenginer over 7 years ago

    Congratulations to the grand prize winner jofas and the Desktop Christmas Tree and the other folks that one the First place prize.  All of the projects were great which I imagine was tough for the judges to choose an ultimate winner, but that Desktop Christmas Tree was very well done and looks quite professional.  Perhaps it will show up as a commercial product next holiday season. 

     

    I would like to thank Tariq and Randall as well as everyone with Element14 for providing such an outlet for Engineers as well as aspiring Engineers to participate in the awesome design challenges that Element14 has opened to the public.  I personally find it very helpful since you get to see other folks projects and processes.  

     

    You guys Rock!

     

    Cheers,

     

    Jon

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  • genebren
    genebren over 7 years ago

    Well done one and all!  It was fun going through all of blogs and updates of all of the projects!

    Gene

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  • dougw
    dougw over 7 years ago

    Congratulations to all winners and participants who all had to find time to participate at a busy time of the year.

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  • dixonselvan
    dixonselvan over 7 years ago

    Congratulation to Grand Prize winner jofas, the first place winners ($100) ntewinkel,  jomoenginer , and dwinhold and also the honorable mentions beagles and carmelito . Your hard work paid off. Good luck to become better with the prizes you have earned.

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  • dwinhold
    dwinhold over 7 years ago

    Congratulations to jofas on winning the grand prize!! All the submissions were great and kept in the holiday theme. I can see why the judges had a hard time choosing (Great job to them!!). I want to thank the judges and Element14 for choosing myself and kids to be one of the 1st place prize winners. Now for the hard decision to figure out who to give the "Gift shopping cart" to (I will leave this up to my kids, with my help).

     

    Thank you again!!

     

    Dale W

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  • koudelad
    koudelad over 7 years ago

    Congratulations to all, who attended. I am glad that Project14 is not about the most sophisticated design in the world, but about inspiring others by things simple to make, yet brilliant in some way.

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