Monitoring system wins Hackster IoT design contest

The winning design, which came from Belgium, uses a commercial narrowband network, SigFox in this particular project. It can monitor operation of the machine and send diagnostic data to users, potentially enabling preventive maintenance on machines being used at construction sites.

Second prize in the contest goes to India for an IOT2020-based industrial boiler controller design, which demonstrated the flexibility of the IOT2020 platform in an industrial application.

A key element of this highly imaginative project was the use of gravity and a water pump in place of a fuel pump, and a flow sensor as a steam turbine.

The three runners-up submissions were designs for an automatic pond filler, a safety assistant for an industrial control system and an energy monitoring gateway.

Sponsored by RS Components and others, including Tektronix, Weller and Massimo Banzi, the co-founder of Arduino, the total value of prizes for the contest is more than US$7500 with a first prize of US$4800.

Five winning design ideas – from more than 80 initial submissions received from across the globe – were selected by Peter Oakes of thebreadboardca YouTube channel, the initiator of the competition who is also a leading engineer and programmer, together with RS and Massimo Banzi of Arduino.

Heiko Luckhaupt, Industry Sector Marketing Manager at RS, said: “The competition saw an exceptionally wide range of highly innovative ideas including monitoring-based systems for use in the local environment, which should clearly demonstrate the flexibility and functionality of the IOT2020. Although the device is mainly targeted at students, makers and geeks, we also believe this Hackster community contest has shown the potential for real deployment of the product in industrial and home automation applications.”