element14 and Hackster, two Avnet communities, announced the launch of the “Little Free STEM Library Design Challenge,” encouraging their communities of makers, designers and engineers to host, build or upgrade a local Little Free Library with the STEM experience.

The goal of this challenge is for the 3 million members of the element14 and Hackster communities to use their love of STEM to enhance a Little Free Library in their neighborhood, promoting the importance of STEM/STEAM education. Participants are encouraged to blog about their project on either the element14 Community or Hackster websites so other members of the online communities can learn from their experience and spread their creativity.

“Little Free Libraries are an important way to share a love of books and reading with local communities, but have generally not been STEM-focused,” said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and Social Media for the element14 Community. “With this design challenge, we’re encouraging our members to have their local book exchange locations also reflect the importance of STEM education and highlight the important balance of encouraging both a love of reading and an excitement for creating something new using STEM skills.”

The Design Challenge is a fun way to get creative in building or enhancing what is already a great community service. Potential projects could include:

• Creating a way for a song to play every time the door opens to a Little Free Library
• Building a solar lighting system to illuminate a Little Free Library at night
• Securing a touchscreen to a Little Free Library that requires individuals to answer fun questions or riddles before accessing the books

"With the 'Little Free STEM Library Design Challenge', we're excited to create an opportunity for global innovators to reimagine the Little Free Library as a captivating center of STEM resources,” said Jessica Tangeman, CEO of Hackster. “Hackster hopes to empower exploration into STEM education by inviting developers to over-engineer a traditional literary access point into a fun, approachable representation of engineering in their local community. Collectively, let's ignite a passion for learning and showcase the incredible creativity that lies at the intersection of literature and STEM education."

The top 5 participants, groups or community spaces with the most innovative Little Free Libraries will each receive 20 x Micro:bit’s and a bundle of Maker Shed books. In addition, winners will receive a $100 Rybbon gift card prize for their efforts in helping promote STEM in their community. Build, host or upgrade an existing Little Library for a chance to win.

The “Little Free STEM Library Design Challenge” is open now through September 15. Winners will be announced in September 2023.

This Design Challenge is created in partnership with Avnet Cares. Since March of 2022, Avnet (based in Phoenix, AZ) has worked with the Literary Society of the Southwest, in collaboration with the Rural Activation Innovation Network, Southwest Human Development, and public libraries around Arizona to compile over 1,000 themed STEM kits for rural areas. Providing science-enabled content to promote STEM/STEAM education and awareness is one of the core missions at Avnet Cares.

 To learn more about the element14 and Hackster communities and the “Little Free STEM Library Design Challenge,” visit http://community.element14.com/STEMLittleLibrary

As Avnet’s project-based community for anyone who wants to learn about programming and building hardware, Hackster.io challenges its community to use the power of IoT every day. Its latest contest tasks participants to not only add intelligence to their projects, but to take it to the edge.

IoT projects require that hardware, software and security solutions all work together to be successful. So, contestants will need to reimagine something from their everyday lives that could benefit from intelligent IoT, and use SmartEdge Agile and the Brainium portal to create it. These technologies can help anyone effectively develop and deploy intelligent open source IoT projects at the edge through an easy-to-use, zero-code interface.

To help participants get started, Hackster.io will give away SmartEdge Agile IoT devices to the 100 best project proposals submitted to the contest page’s “Apply for hardware” tab by 19^th April. Developers who miss the deadline can purchase SmartEdge Agile exclusively through Premier Farnell. All participants will have until 23^rd June to create a project, document the development and submit their project to the contest page. Winners will be announced on 1^st July.

By utilizing SmartEdge Agile with Octonion’s Brainium portal and AI Studio powered by Microsoft Azure, participating developers will have access to a “zero-coding” revolutionary machine learning tool to easily bring intelligence to their projects. Brainium Portal can be used to easily initiate a proof of concept (POC) by leveraging more than 20 predefined AI algorithms that can be re-used through to product launch. A Brainium software agent is embedded into SmartEdge Agile allowing seamless interface with AI Studio and facilitating the end-to end IoT solution which enables customers to focus on their use cases.

“Many IoT projects don’t get off the ground because of the complexity of incorporating hardware, software and security into designs,” said Lou Lutostanski, global vice president of IoT for Avnet. “A solution such as the SmartEdge Agile with the Brainium portal helps to simplify and secure the process of adding intelligence to IoT. The Hackster community is already leveraging these products to reimagine everyday objects with the power of AI at the edge, with some of the ideas shared so far ranging from a wildlife detector, to an automated greenhouse and even a smart badminton bat.”

This contest underscores the commitment to driving IoT innovation throughout the Avnet ecosystem. This ecosystem, comprised of small-scale specialists Premier Farnell; project-based online engineering community Hackster.io; manufacturing solution provider Dragon Innovation; and software and AI strategist Softweb Solutions; reduces the time, cost and complexities of bringing products to market.

SmartEdge Agile with the Brainium portal includes everything makers need to develop and deploy intelligent IoT projects:

• Ready to use IoT device: BLE 5.0 with nine sensors
• End to end solution: full software stack at firmware, gateway and cloud levels
• Dashboard: real time data visualization with Brainium widgets
• Customization: ready to use cloud API for customization
• AI at the Edge with zero coding approach: the AI studio allows makers to build and deploy an AI model in just a few clicks
• Security at the Edge: edge to cloud security model

An expert panel, including Ongan Mordeniz, Co-founder and COO of Octonion; Michael Lamp, Director of Americas IoT Business Development at Avnet, Luis Benito Matias Igea, IoT Principal Solutions Specialist at Microsoft; and Patrice Hamard, Microcontroller Product Marketing Manager at STMicroelectronics, will judge the entries.

Hackster.io will award more than $6,000 in prizes in three categories, tripling participants’ chances to win: Best Use of AI at the Edge, Best Use Case For Real Life Practical Application, and Best Use Case For Industrial IoT. First, second and third place winners for each of the categories will receive a Vuzix Blade, GIWOX 3D Holographic Fan, and DJI Osmo Pocket Camera respectively.

The Hackster.io team will also select one project that best contributes to any of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to receive a $250 gift card, 12-month subscription to Patchr Premium, and be featured in a video interview with Hackster’s vibrant in-house personality and hardware nerd, Alex Glow.

To learn more about this challenge to bring intelligence to the real world, and to enter, visit https://www.hackster.io/contests/smartedgeagile