Challenge for 2015: hackaday prize competition

So the 2015 Hackaday prize is happening, until at least August.

Somehow I’ve currently ended up involved with not one, but two entries!  The good thing is that with four months to go until the first round submission, I have been careful not to bite off more that can be chewed in the time available on weekends, or after the kids go to bed, etc. with other commitments. Along the way though it should be educational and fun, and with any luck I might at least win a T-shirt or something (some electronics test gear would be nice) … I’m under no illusion we will get anywhere near winning a trip to space!

The themes this year are is “Build Something that Matters”, around environment, agriculture and energy, with the related facet of solving a problem, and not necessarily a world-scale problem.

So my first project, of which I am making good progress, is a farm crop monitoring system for Australian conditions.  This utilises the ESP8266 wifi module and will exercise its deep sleep mode, and solar power, along with a yet to be determined Linux module for a local base station, and hopefully ISM band telemetry over long distances. I will also be helped by my neighbour who is a farmer who can use this system.

The second project, which is not my idea but that of a close friend, (but for which I am presently responsible for maintaining the hackaday.io page), is an Algorithmic Composting machine built out of repurposed parts and cheap electronics.  I’ll probably end up assisting with the embedded electronics, as well as keeping the documentation up to date.

I wont be posting here in a lot of detail as the contest progresses, as there is a project log built into the hackaday.io site intended for that purpose.  So follow along at http://hackaday.io/project/4758 and http://hackaday.io/project/4991  instead! (And please like our projects if you have a hackaday account!)