Mar 7 2014
RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc (LSE:ECM), the world’s leading high service distributor of electronics and maintenance products, is sponsoring a new open-source robotics competition ‘Hack the Arduino Robot’ at RobotChallenge 2014.
RobotChallenge has taken place annually in Vienna since 2004 and is a competition event for self-made, autonomous and mobile robots. The international event brings people together from all over the world to share their interest in robotics and present their creations to a wider audience.
‘Hack the Arduino Robot’, sponsored by RS, celebrates the increasing use of open-source software and hardware in electronic design projects, and is based upon the Arduino Robot, Arduino’s first open-source hardware on wheels, introduced in August 2013.
Competition entrants to the ‘Hack the Arduino Robot’ challenge, either teams or individuals, had to submit their project idea, including a short description of up to 120 words, responding to three main questions: what would you do with an Arduino Robot, what makes your idea special, and what real life problem does your robot solve? An international jury has now selected the 10 best project ideas based upon the following criteria: feasibility of the project; idea and creativity; and technology and innovation. 58 project ideas were received in total from 22 different countries worldwide.
The successful entrants have now received notification of the selection of their application. The 10 selected entries have been given a brand new Arduino Robot to be used to implement the project ideas, and what is more, all the selected entrants will be able to keep their robot after the competition.
Following notification, entrants will go through the implementation phase until 9th March to realise their project and upload the related documentation (this phase will then be followed by an online voting period until 23rd March, extendable until 28th March).
The overall winners will be officially announced at RobotChallenge 2014, which takes place on 29th and 30th March 2014, with the winning projects also being published on the RS Components, Arduino and RobotChallenge websites.
RS Components is donating a selection of ISO-TECH products, including an oscilloscope, bench power supply, multimeter and tool kit, to the winners of the ‘Hack the Arduino Robot ’ in two categories – the Best Project and Documentation Award and the Community Award.
The main evaluation criteria for the Best Project and Documentation Award are project idea and implementation quality, clarity and completeness of documentation. As open-source design is all about sharing with the community, it is expected that design team entrants will document their project in such a way that others can learn from their experience and build upon the ideas. Shared documentation can include videos, pictures, source code, CAD drawings or any other related material. Any platform is allowed, provided it is accessible via the Internet, which could include a team’s own website or via Facebook, Instructables or YouTube, for example.
For the Community award, following the implementation of the project, a short video between three to five minutes long presenting the project and the team will need to be submitted. The video will be uploaded on the RS Components YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/rswwwchannel and the project with the most number of likes will win the Community award. The winning project will also be used to promote the project on the social media websites of RobotChallenge and RS Components.