element14.com, an Avnet community, has announced its latest Project14 design contest, themed around reducing electronics waste by upcycling vintage electronics. Members of the online community will have the opportunity to repurpose any unused appliance to make it into something new, unique and useful. By upcycling electronics that no longer serve a purpose, members of the community are able to celebrate the best parts of vintage electronics while improving them to make them function in today’s electronics environment.

A monthly design competition open to makers and engineers of all backgrounds and skill levels, Project14 was developed to promote shared learning and cooperation among members of the element14 Community. Participants are asked to document their progress through a series of blogs, with the best executed projects eligible for a chance of winning a $200 credit for use at Newark in North America, Farnell in Europe or element14 in Asia Pacific.

All Project14 challenges are based on suggestions from element14 community members, with each month’s theme selected by a public poll. The Recycle & Retrofit challenge was inspired by a workshop on Vintage Upcycling hosted by Enrico Miglino: 

To enter the Project14 Recycle & Retrofit Design Contest, participants simply need to register an account at the element14 Community and submit a blog entry detailing their idea and how they plan to develop it.

Submissions are open until December 14, 2020. For more information including full terms and conditions, visit: www.element14.com/upcycle

To register to become a member of the element14 Community, visit http://www.element14.com/

element14.com, the community for engineers, has announced the winners of its “Sixth Sense” Design Challenge. As one of five challenges the element14 Community runs each year, element14 encouraged its members to create a small, remotely-operated or autonomous vehicle, leveraging the powerful processing capabilities of STMicroelectronics and TE Connectivity products to improve remote vehicle sensing and data collection.

The element14 Community team of judges selected a Grand Prize and Runner Up winner for the design challenge:

• Grand Prize – Douglas Wong, Canada – Douglas created GraffitiBot, a fully autonomous ground vehicle capable of printing graphics on the surface it traverses and producing a liquid canvas drawing. Although the GraffitiBot itself might be small, the scope of the project was anything but, incorporating mechanical, electronics, software and hydraulic design.

• Runner Up – Rod B, UK – Rod created a robot to help those working in construction by hauling heavy materials such as sand or gravel. To achieve this, Rod made his own PCB to host the TE Magnet sensor so that it would be board-mountable, showing an inventive way of using the required technology. This was Rod’s first ever element14 design challenge.

Through detailed blog posts, the challengers made all of their build steps and code open source, so other element14 Community members can learn from these designs and replicate projects on their own.

“As the Development Distributor, we are committed to being a champion for makers and are proud to help drive innovation for our 600,000-plus member community,” said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and Social Media for the element14 Community. “As always, we were very impressed by the creativity and innovative spirit our community demonstrated with this challenge and are looking forward to offering more opportunities for our members to push the boundaries of electronic design.”

The element14 Community is part of Premier Farnell, the development distributor, which helps design engineers, maintenance and test engineers, makers, parents, and teachers develop the future generation of coders and products that apply technology to change our world for the better.

To learn more about element14 design challenges and the community’s commitment to drive innovation and champion makers, visit: https://www.element14.com/community/community/design-challenges