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What should we run as the next 'Design Challenge Competition' ? Give us your suggestions!

cstanton

Hey everyone,

 

What should we run as the next Design Challenge using Raspberry Pi?

 

There have been a number of these competitions over the years, ideally resulting in a prototype that could go to production - though some are, frankly, just for fun at demonstrating the products that we sell. Still, we want something that invites you to create something either with products you have or products we give you to make a project that ideally makes a difference.

 

We're looking for Raspberry Pi Design Challenge ideas this time. We've had a few of these in the past:

 

Pi Chef Design Challenge

Bluetooth Unleashed Design Challenge

Pi IoT

Sci Fi Your Pi

Forget Me Not Design Challenge

Rocking Raspberry Pi

Pi NoIR and Catch Santa Challenge

 

After some suggestions have been made we may have a poll to choose the one we go with image and you'll probably get a badge for helping out image

  • Another Pi project was The Ultimate Raspberry Pi Bundle.

     

    Some ideas for a Pi design challenge come to mind but they have drawbacks:

    • A bench instrumentation automation hub - the problem is not very many people have enough programmable instruments to make a complex test system.
    • A cool home entertainment system - although the Pi would be good for this, I'm not sure this has the right scope for a design challenge
    • A multi-energy scavenging system (wind, solar, vibration, thermal, rf) - I'm not sure a Pi is the best controller for this application
    • A smart classroom aide for scoring interactive quizzes, tallying a "show of hands" or votes, taking attendance, scoring and tallying audience preferences, etc. - This one would be tough to define in a way suitable for a design challenge
    • A music system controller or a musical instrument controller - there is some scope here, but the number of musicians capable of an electronics design challenge might be too small
    • A smart sports system that can help optimize training or monitor performance - this doesn't seem to be too popular with people focused on technology
    • An IoT edge platform with LoRa Gateway /  MQTT broker - there could be some interesting applications, but the platform hardware and software are mostly available already

  • A robot project would be great - ROS.org | Powering the world's robots  runs fine on a Pi, so the infrastructure is there. Would be even more great when some AI (deep learning) is involved, for example let the robot navigate through an environment and count objects of a certain kind.

  • in reply to gpolder

    Robots would be a good one although I think there's already another robots challenge running at the moment

  • in reply to Workshopshed

    Hi Andy, I was not aware of that, can you give a pointer?

  • I googled Trends for 2019 and it was not particularly helpful. Although one thing mentioned was bots and customer service.

     

    So can we serve Pi in 2019?

  • in reply to Workshopshed

    The Sixth Sense design challenge is more about adding intelligence and awareness to automotive or robots image

  • I am looking for a way to sort Pistol or Rifle Brass by Head Stamp.  There are sorting trays to sort by caliber that are inexpensive and easy to use, but sorting by Head Stamp is a time consuming manual operation.  For example I reload 9mm and .380 Pistol Brass and 2.23/5.56 Rifle Brass. Each manufacturer places a head stamp mark on the base of the brass cartridge that identifies the Caliber, Manufacturer, and Brand of the ammunition.  Examples of Head Stamps can be found at:  https://afte.org/resources/headstamp-guide. (Click on first stamp to bring up additional examples.)  This machine could operate similar to the M & M Sorter except that the brass would first have to be oriented base up then drop into a caliber specific holder and be placed under a camera.  Next an image would be captured and rotated to the same orientation as the various images assigned to specific buckets.  When a match is found, the machine would send the brass to the correct bucket.  Any unmatched images would result in the corresponding brass being sent to the discard bucket to be processed again when a different mix of Head Stamps are being sorted.  The machine would need to maintain a database of Head Stamp Images that could be assigned to various buckets as needed.  Also there would need to be a way to change the caliber specific holder when sorting a different caliber of brass.

     

    The advantage of reloading ammunition is that one can tune the ammo to their specific gun to achieve the greatest accuracy and most consistent shots.  By sorting by Manufacturer's Head Stamp, minute differences in case volume can be more closely controlled.  Ammo is manufactured to specific external tolerances, but variations in case wall thickness between manufactures and within the same manufacturer can affect the internal case volume, so it is still necessary to weigh each case to maintain close tolerances.    Other factors (but not all inclusive list) affecting shot accuracy include the powder charge, bullet weight, and bullet seating depth.

     

    In case you may be concerned, I shoot only paper targets at an approved firing range.  There are various competitions where one can win prizes and more importantly bragging rights.