UK projects dominate Change the World design competition

 Entrants were asked to select products from Farnell element14’s broad range of semiconductor, interconnect and passive products, as well as development boards, single board computers, test equipment and tools, and were tasked with explaining their idea in just 500 words or less.

 Steve Carr, Head of Marketing for Premier Farnell says “We have received a variety of world changing competition entries from students, makers and design engineers all over the globe. The winning ideas range from a low-cost portable diagnostic center for rural villages to a precision apiculture system to help reverse the bee population decline, to a 3D printed incubator to address the lack of medical technologies in less developed parts of the world. We are now in the process of talking to each of the winners to understand how the team at Premier Farnell can support them in the development of these ideas, to turn them in to real projects that could change the world.”

 The winning projects from the UK included:

• A solar powered, Raspberry Pi & cloud configured IoT network to transfer educational resources to schools in remote villages all over the world to increase educational opportunities that would not otherwise be accessible.
• An adapted smart metering system that uses intelligent software to recognise a change in routine to suggest that a vulnerable or elderly person is ill or injured and trigger an alarm system as well as sending a warning message to family/friends.
• A low-cost digital stethoscope that can be used at home to monitor heart activity, breathing etc. The digital stethoscope will also be able to send data to a doctor via mobile phone, enabling expert consultation without the need for a hospital visit.