element14 has announced the winners of its annual Community Awards. The top innovators, designers and engineers are celebrated across multiple categories, including several that are new this year. From the most innovative Project14, video and design challenge projects, to the community members who went above and beyond in contributing to and shaping the community, the awards highlight the incredible work being done on element14.com every day.
“Last year was incredibly challenging for everyone,” said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community and Social Media for element14. “We are so proud of the way our 700,000-strong community came together to create solutions to help fight COVID-19 or make socially-distanced living more manageable and enjoyable. We look forward to seeing our members continue to push the boundaries and share new, exciting designs in 2021.”
The winners of the element14 2020 Community Awards are:
- Rising Contributor of the Year –Richard Seals, United Kingdom – Richard brought a wide range of skills, a high level of creativity, and a great sense of humor to his element14 projects throughout 2020. He shared dozens of blog posts, allowing his fellow community members to follow along and learn from him.
- element14 Presents Video Project of the Year – Raspberry Pi Speech to Text LED Face Mask – Lorraine Underwood from the United Kingdom created this high-tech Raspberry Pi-powered face mask to helps break down communications barriers by transcribing what the user is saying on a light up grid across the front of the mask.
- Design Challenge Project of the Year – Measure Climate Change with Hydroponic System –
As part of the Sustain the World Design Challenge, Satoshi Suzuki from the United States built a fully functional hydroponic farm, with a web-based monitoring interface and full CO2 monitoring, using Infineon hardware. The project showed ingenuity, a broad array of engineering skills, and was an inspiration for the community.
- Project14: Project of the Year – Machine Gets an Upgrade – Gene Breniman from the United States tinkered with the classic Mr. Machine robot toy to showcase the power of creating new from old. Upgrades included replacing the original wind-up mechanism with electronic motors, improving its range of motion, adding LEDs and more.
- Project14: 2020 Decider of the Year – Gene Breniman also brought his experience and wisdom to multiple Project14 competitions throughout the year, helping to determine which projects best exemplified the monthly themes.
- Project14: 2020 Founder of the Year – Miguel Pineiro, from Chile, contributed multiple creative ideas for new competitions throughout 2020 – all a big hit with the community as a whole.
- Project14: 2020 Influencer of the Year – Frank Milburn, from the United States, submitted countless projects, blog posts and project videos over the year and played a major role in keeping Project14 the vibrant community program that it is.
Favorite Road-Tested Products of the Year – InfiniiVision 3000T X-Series Oscilloscope MSOX3034 and Raspberry Pi HQ Camera were both so popular, they resulted in a tie. The two very different products exemplify the variety products from Newark, the global distributor of electronic components, products and solutions, available to test by element14 Community members.
- RoadTester of the Year – Jan Cumps, Belgium – A 2020 RoadTest Hero for his all-round contribution to the program, including one of 2020’s best RoadTests reviewing an Infineon Blockchain kit.
- Favorite Webinar of the Year – Introduction to TinyML by Edge Impulse – Edge Impulse walked community members through solutions with embedded Machine Learning, discussing TinyML and how it can enable practical applications on extremely low-power MCUs.
The annual community awards are one of the many ways that element14 celebrates the success of its community of engineers and makers as they harness the power of electronics design to make a positive impact on their communities and the world.
To learn more, visit www.element14.com
