Welcome to another installment in the Design Challenge Weekly Summary series here at Element14! February is a big month for the Design Challenge series here at Element14. The Open Source Music Challenge is in full swing and the project proposal process is open for the Make Life Accessible challenge. If you have not checked out either challenge yet, you are truly missing out. The Music Tech challenge has some amazing projects in development, and the prizes being offered in Make Life Accessible are about as good as it gets!
Open Source Music Tech
In the past week, we have had a total of three project updates posted from just two projects. While this is a lot lower than I would like to see, all three updates were quite informative and well written. Head over to the challenge’s project blog’s page to check all of these out. With only three post this week I will be trimming the number of post I feature here to just one.
In the past week a two projects have has been updated:
- Project: LaserScope Music by Adam John Williams (adamjohnwilliams)
- Project: Vintage Toy Synthesizer by Liam Lacey (liamtmlacey)
This Week’s Top Update
Project LaserScope Music: Issues with prototype
Adam John Williams (adamjohnwilliams) project, Laser Scope Music, hit a small bump in the road last week when the laws of physics prevented the actuator arms from tiny 1.8-inch hard drives from moving with heavy mirrors on them. To combat this, Adam plans on using the actuator assembly from larger 3.5-inch hard drives which in theory should have more powerful motors. Before Adam hacks apart two more hard drives, he decided to test his mechanical mirror assembly using a prototype built out of cardboard. This will allow him to measure the movement available from the planned HDD setup’s limited range of motion.
Make Life Accessible Design Challenge
If you have been living under a rock, you might not have heard the good news! The newly announced Make Life Accessible Design Challenge aims to make the community think up new motor-control inspired solutions that will improve the lives pf people who are disabled, or who are considered vulnerable. Enter your design project by 19th February 23:59 GMT and be in with a chance of being selected as a sponsored challenger receiving the Official Challenger Kit which includes the NXP FRDM-KV31F Freedom Development PlatformNXP FRDM-KV31F Freedom Development Platform, NXP FRDM-MC-LVPMSM Low-Voltage Motor Control KitNXP FRDM-MC-LVPMSM Low-Voltage Motor Control Kit and much more free of charge!
Fifteen of the most interesting project concepts will be selected by the official judging panel on 1st March 2016. Whether you receive the challenger kit or decide to enter on your own, you will still win at least one fabulous prize for completing a project. Check out the links below to find out more about the Make Life Accessible Challenge, and how you can submit your project idea!
- About The Make Life Accessible Challenge
- The Prizes
- The Official Challenger Kit
- Proposal Examples
- The Make Life Accessible Challenge Terms and Conditions
That is going to wrap things up for this installment of the Design Challenge Weekly Summary here at Element14. I will be back next week with another installment, until then remember to Hack The World, and Make Awesome!