Electromaker of the Month - April 2023 Winners
April has seen a whole shower of new and exciting projects show up on our project hub! As always, the whole month's worth of submissions have been looked over (and thoroughly enjoyed) by our judges - but there can only be 3 winners. Lets meet them!
In case you missed it - Electromaker of the Month celebrates the top three community projects (as picked by our independent judges) and rewards them with prizes, including Amazon gift vouchers (provided by the lovely folks at Mouser) and Electromaker Swag!
1. Diy Automated Blinds
Your overall winner this month is Mellow_Labs, with an amazing DIY automated window blinds build. Automated blinds are one of the most satisfying - and potentially frustrating - smart home installations. It can be, however, a pain to find ones that suit your needs, work with the rest of your smart home set up, or even work at all.
Not happy with any of the off-the-shelf options, Mellow_Labs designed and built blackout blinds from scratch using custom 3d printed parts, and an ESP8266 devkit for driving the motors and reading limit switches. In a clever twist, these blinds rise from the bottom of the windows rather than the top, allowing blocking of direct light, while still allowing natural light into the room.
Our judges were impressed with the DIY approach to each element of this project - from designing custom parts through to debugging system issues. The documentation also got a special mention, with its fantastic video and stylized illustration of the circuit. Note that a revision based on a handy YouTube commenter has eliminated any noise issues with the limit switches, making this build even more robust!
Congratulations Mellow_Labs! You win the top Electromaker of the Month prize - a $150 Amazon gift voucher and a pile of Electromaker Swag!
2. Picofarmled - Led Panels For Diy Home Farming Projects
Second place this time around is Picofarmled - Led Panels For Diy Home Farming Projects from stant. This build started as a general experiment into creating a cheap and easy-to-use system for growing plants indoors, and has bloomed into a fully-fledged small-scale hardware production project!
It consists of a 6 x 6 grid of high-quality LEDs designed for indoor gardens, with an onboard driver and simple connector for attaching external power and a microcontroller.
Our judges were impressed with much effort has gone into making this panel as high quality as possible, despite its simplicity. While it may have been easier to use cheaper LEDs or make it only work with certain logic levels, the maker chose to use high quality LEDs and a driver allowing control from 3.3 or 5v controller boards.
This budding project has won you second this month, congratulations! A $100 Amazon voucher, and some Electromaker Goodies will be on their way to you!
3. Ai-assisted Air Quality Monitor W/ Iot Surveillance
Taking third prize is kutluhan_aktar with the Ai-assisted Air Quality Monitor W/ Iot Surveillance project. Kutluhan's projects always come with a certain style to them, blending Artificial Internet of Things principles with clean 3dprinted design aesthetics. This time, an ESP32 camera devkit, an Arduino Mega, and a LattePanda Delta all come together to provide an EdgeAI-powered air quality monitor, which can double up as a DIY surveillance system!
While the project and concepts here are really impressive, our judges were really impressed with the incredible level of detail the documentation of this project went into. Each step fully covered, with pictures, and all of the design files and many resources for learning are provided.
Congratulations Kutluhan, you win third prize, a $50 Amazon gift voucher and a pile of Electromaker Swag!
Will You Be the Next Electromaker of the Month?
Every month we celebrate the inventive, curious, and resourceful nature of our Maker community. Any project published on the Electromaker website is eligible to win, and there's a whole host of great prizes!
To get started, register for a free Electromaker account, and upload your project!
Ian Buckley is a writer, musician, and perpetual tinkerer. Commonly found surrounded by hobby electrical components, he's also a keen programmer and likes to build crazy-sounding instruments with microcontrollers. In addition to Electromaker, Ian writes over at MakeUseOf and has bylines at the likes of Online Tech Tips as well as Help Desk Geek.
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