element14, an Avnet community, continued to challenge and inspire its members throughout 2023 by hosting dozens of design challenges and educational opportunities, providing the opportunity for the global community to experiment with new technology, generate environmentally-friendly projects and express their creativity.
“Our design challenges are meant to inspire creativity and innovation, and based on the unique projects we received this year, they did just that and more,” said Phil Hutchinson, Senior Programs Manager at element14 Community. “Our members generated everything from bee identification gadgets to help the planet, to little free library tech upgrades to encourage a love of reading, all while experimenting with top products and learning about new technology solutions.”
Below are a few stand-out projects from the 2023 design challenges:
- Save the Bees Design Challenge: Participants were encouraged to generate projects to protect bees by using hardware and technology. Members were buzzing with great ideas and inventions, including a remote node to identify bees, a pollinator monitoring system using Raspberry Pi, a remote node LoRa WAN connected IoT Bee Monitor which collected data on a mocked up bee hive, and a low power remote Bee Monitoring platform.
- Little Free STEM Library Design Challenge: element14 and Hackster inspired their communities of makers, designers and engineers to host, build or upgrade a local Little Free Library with STEM. One community member created a smart STEM Little Library using the Infineon PSoC6 with Bluetooth security controls. This project helped share STEM resources with children in their community.
- At The Core Design Challenge: The spirit of forwarding education also carried into this challenge which allowed participants to work with the PSoC 62S4 pioneer kit. One community member used the kit to create a unique alphabet learning toy for children.
In addition to the many hands-on design challenge opportunities, the Community members also learned more about cutting-edge technology applications from the element14 Presents video series. Below are a few of the latest releases:
- Episode 623: How to Run Linux on an ESP32
- Episode 628: Affordable DIY Robot Arm: A Deep Dive into 3D Printing and Servo Motors
- Episode 630: Mega IIe: First Fully Functional Computer built around the Apple Mega-II Chip — Episode-630
The element14 Community is looking forward to the design challenges, projects and educational opportunities to come in 2024, including opportunities to receive and review coveted engineering tech products through element14’s RoadTest program.
