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Congratulations to dougw for The Magic Tool Kit , Workshopshed for Babbages Baggage , and fmilburn for PERMA-PROTO: A Portable Prototyping System Built to Last .
You are the winners of the Portable Electronics Kit project competition from Project14!
The portable electronics kit competition was a chance to assemble your own electronics kit. It could be an educational kit on electronics similar to something you may have picked up at Radio Shack when you were growing up, something like the lunch box dev kit that Ben Heck did, a kit you assemble to teach circuits, an experimenter to learn about analog, digital, and led, a storage container to house your electronics or tools, and much more.
This was a particular strong showing of projects and an argument can be made for any of the projects that appear on this list.
Without further ado, here are the winners of the Portable Electronics Kit competition:
The Winners
dougw built a toolbox that always has the right tools and the right parts and the right documentation to fix whatever the current problem is. Back when he was the “go-to” troubleshooter that got sent out into the field to handle the tough problems, he spent a lot of effort carefully choosing what to pack in my toolbox.
If you have the right stuff in the box, you look like a hero, if you don't have the right stuff you look incompetent – there is a big difference. Since those fieldwork days he has had fewer and fewer occasions to pack a magic toolbox and there are lots of new technologies to take into consideration now. What follows is an exploration of a more modern version of the magic toolbox that almost never let him down in the past.
"I really liked the overview of all the tools. The videos can be really helpful to many hobbyist and professionals, I didn't know some of the tools even existed." - Anonymous Judge
"Once again, Douglas Wong, has demonstrated the clear and concise approach that he takes on any project he works on. I almost needed to write down a list of all the cleaver tools that I should add to my own tool box." - Anonymous Judge
Tools are so important that they can make or break a job, but when you can't take every tool, which ones do you have to have?
The Luggage is a fictional object that appears in several of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. It is a large chest made of Sapient Pearwood (a magical, intelligent plant which is nearly extinct, impervious to magic, and only grows in a few places outside the Agatean Empire, generally on sites of very old magic, such as Indian burial grounds and ancient monolithic sites). It can produce hundreds of little legs protruding from its underside and can move very fast if the need arises. It has been described as "half suitcase, half homicidal maniac" (Sourcery paperback p22).
"Babbages baggage" is Workshopshed 's interpretation of this, perhaps Rincewind travelled through a magic portal to England on one of his adventures and taught Babbage how to make his own version of the chest. For this project he looked at a range of walking robots. There were loads of these and many you could 3D print yourself. They required a lot of servos but they typically had 6 legs which were not enough for him.
He went with a giant centipede toys with a load of legs and a remote control. It was screwed together and came apart really easily. The chest was just the right size for the legs. The mechanics were hidden in the head. Two tiny motors with right angled gearboxes drove two wheels and there were LEDs to indicate that it was turned on. It came with the ability to steer and the centipede could be controlled.
"Babbage Baggage, most unique interpretation" - Anonymous Judge
Andy's take on this project was a bit different, but I thoroughly enjoyed his project. A kit that brings your things to you. Too bad it wasn't a bit bigger to carry more stuff. - Anonymous Judge
The control circuit consists of a Lipo battery, there's no sign of a charger but there is a "special" cable that connects to USB so perhaps there's a small charger in that. The switch simply connects the + of the battery to either the control circuit or to the charging socket. There's an IR photo transistor on the top of the board and an 8 pin chip on the bottom. The chip appears to drive a couple of transistors.
PERMA-PROTO: A Portable Prototyping System Built to Last
fmilburn has a small work area with limited storage. Essentially all parts and components for his projects are kept in a cabinet which slides under the work table to the left. Parts and components are further subdivided into plastic storage boxes. An important feature of the storage boxes is that the majority of them are the same size and fit into a carrying case for portability. This allows him to pull the boxes he needs from storage and put them into a carrying case whenever needed without further packing and unpacking.
This project describes his system for storage, portability, and rapid prototyping of projects that won’t fall apart. The approach features modularity, standardized parts, and rapid transition from breadboard to sturdy prototype.
"Good overview of tools and storage system for people having limited space. I also liked the idea of building custom prototyping boards - it is not that scary as a lot of amateurs think." - Anonymous Judge
Getting organized, standardizing, and making things portable so he can demonstrate and work elsewhere has been a big help to him, given the small space he works in at home. Having the prototyping PCB and a readily usable enclosure adds permanence, portability, and some polish to quick projects at a low cost.
Honorable Mention
The Arduino Starter Kit Upgraded Case
gam3t3ch needed a new case/organizer for the Arduino Starter Kit that he got for Non-Electrical to Electrial issue: Battery booster pack repair as part of Project14 | Winners Announcement: DIY Simple Electronic Repairs! What better way then to enter another Project14 using what he got previously?
The case that's included with the Arduino Starter Kit is flimsy and a case such as the one gam3t3ch made is not only a sturdy, attractive upgrade from what's include. It also doesn't cost much to have something this awesome!
He made the case out of scrap piece of 2x6 cedar that he had laying around. The dimension of the completed case are 11x6x4 inches. He spent a total of $14 Canadian on this project for the hardware. Now he is organized and portable and able to continue my projects anywhere he needs to be. It's also great as a storage container for his projects.
My late (and incomplete) entry for the Portable Electronics Kit - The Pi-IDE (Pie-Eyed)
After the-dubster watched Episode 231: Ben Heck’s Lunch Box Dev Kit Episode he thought to himself "I could do with one of those - but a bit different."
The Dev Kit was great for boards that had a video output, but it wasn’t so useful for an Arduino - the-dubster needed something that he could use to program the Arduino as well as practice his Dev skills on . . . he needed a laptop type sort-of-device!
He presents his idea for a RPi 3 based Portable dev / electronics kit: The Pi-IDE.
"I appreciate the effort of building a kit into a briefcase. This is a truly portable electronics kit 
" - Anonymous Judge
Update:
The gradual progression of my Pi-IDE - my portable electronics / dev kit.
The gradual progression of my Pi-IDE - my portable electronics / dev kit. Minor update.
Kudos to the-dubster for completing this project and posting the final build to the community! This project competition is for fun, the real reward is completing the project and having something awesome to have when you're done! This project definitely checks both boxes!
EE-CARD: A Portable Electronics Project Kit
This project is about a new portable electronics prototyping kit. It is modular, and the first module is concerned with resistors and capacitors.
When shabaz was a kid, he had a Tandy/Radio Shack 160-in-one electronics kit, and it allowed me to try out hundreds of projects. The kit used springs and wires. The components were all fixed on a base board, and the wires would be patched using the springs, in order to construct a circuit.
shabaz wanted to create a modern version with modern parts. Nowadays wires are often patched using jumper wires into plastic breadboards. Breadboards are cheap, so he wanted to find some way to integrate them into the system. The appearance was also an important factor; he wanted the system to look as interesting as he could make it, to encourage interest from beginners.
A building block style design sounded attractive. Modern components are surface-mount, so he wanted the system to allow project prototyping using them in some way, and get people familiar with how modern components look.
Finally, he wanted to create some ecosystem, or expandable system, that could grow over time.
"Shabaz not only defines the project, he excelled at it. Having first seen this entry, my mind went to building my own prototyping system based on these concepts. I really look forward to seeing how this on turns out." - Anonymous Judge
BoneCommander - A Ruggedized BeagleBone Linux Computer
The BoneCommander by ninjatrent is a rugged and mobile BeagleBone Linux Computer powered by a BeagleBone Black Wireless SBC. An element14 BeagleBone 4.3" LCD Display Cape is the primary display interface for the BBB W.
There is a 4 port USB Hub connected to the USB Host on the BeagleBone and a Wireless USB Keyboard with touchpad connected to this USB Hub. Power is provided by an Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C 5V Lipo USB Boost Charger and a 3.7v 2500mAh Lithium Ion Polymer Battery. The PowerBoost 1000C utilizes the TPS61090 boost converter from TI.
Control an relay from web server using NodeMCU
kk99 presents a simple circuit which allows you to control a device via relay with usage of a web server running on an ESP8266 board. The main component is the ESP8266 board which allow you to run a script in LUA language.
The ESP8266 board is connected with relay module via pin headers.
Be sure to congratulate the winners in the comments below!
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