Electromaker of the Month - August 2023 Winners

August has been an incredible month for our community project hub! From top-notch tutorials to wild and incredible builds, our panel of judges has had a lot of projects to read through! As always the standard was incredible, but there can only be three top projects to win the coveted Electromaker of the Month award!

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 cash (provided by the lovely folks at Mouser) and Electromaker Swag!

The Electromaker of the Month competition is sponsored by Mouser Electronics

1. Jumperless: The No Wires Breadboard

Our first prize winner this month is Jumperless, a wonderful one-person project that puts a spin on the traditional breadboard prototyping workflow. Yes, it looks like a breadboard, but Jumperless eliminates the need for jumper wires, which often lead to a tangled mess in traditional no-soldering setups. The project, created by Kevin Santo Cappuccio - also known as ArchiteuthisFlux, uses a series of analog crosspoint switches wired together to form a larger switch. These switches make real, fully analog hardware connections between any points on the board or the Arduino Nano header at the top via serial. It also houses it's own ADCs, DACs, and voltage/current sensing which can be routed to any point on the board.

Unsurprisingly, Ian was rather taken with this project and featured it on a recent Electromaker Show:

Quick reminder: Ian talked about this before knowing it would win - he doesn't judge this contest!

Jumperless is controlled by an RP2040 and can be programmed exactly like a Raspberry Pi Pico. It also includes a plethora of RGB LEDs to indicate which connections are active, as well as information about those connections. To use Jumperless, you simply plug in your components and then enter the connecting rows or Arduino pins via a Wokwi Web Interface (with command line tools also available) that creates the netlist file for you. The open-source project is available on GitHub for those who wish to build one themselves, or available from Tindie as a kit.

Our judges were not only impressed with the complexity and intuitive design of Jumperless, but by the level of commitment. The creator has not only fully documented their project and made it open source, but is wiling to help people with improving it and even offering replacement parts!

Congratulations to ArchiteuthisFlux for the well deserved 1st prize! You win the top Electromaker of the Month prize, $150 Cash, and a pile of Electromaker Swag!

2. Waste Sorting with TinyML

Second this month is an advanced AI-powered waste sorting system from arunvarghese designed to promote sustainability. The system uses a DFRobot ESP32-CAM to classify items into categories based on some TinyML wizardry, before advising the user which bin to place it in via a small OLED screen. The software applications used include the Arduino Web Editor and Edge Impulse Studio. The project aims to tackle the challenge of waste management on campuses by encouraging waste sorting at the point of disposal.

The system is designed to make waste classification less complex and confusing, especially for young students and individuals with cognitive disabilities. By having clear and distinct bins for different types of waste—recyclables, compostables, and non-recyclables—students and faculty can make informed decisions and divert waste to the appropriate channels. This not only reduces the burden on waste management infrastructure but also minimizes contamination and increases the efficiency of recycling and composting processes.

Here's a quick demo of it in action:

The judges loved the focus on both sustainability and accessibility in this project. By using simple and affordable hardware, it makes this prototype something that could easily scale up into a viable product one day, while remaining the perfect tool to help others learn about EdgeAI and how it fits into day-to-day life.

Congratulations arunvarghese, $100 Cash and an Electromaker Swag bag will arrive with you shortly!

3. Diy Home Automation Using Arduino Uno R4

Third place this time is an Arduino Uno R4 project that puts the new board to perfect use: Home Automation. What with the connectivity, power, and I/O the new Uno brings, it's perfect for creating a DIY smart home, and that's exactly what jithin has achieved via a custom Arduino Shield.

The project also uses Arduino's IoT Cloud, and the convenience of mobile phone control to manage various devices in your home. The custom "Rootsaid Uno Shield" uses resistors, LEDs and MOSFETs to allow the connection of a wide variety of devices, including external relay board modules and I2C addons. 

To see it in action, check out the creators fantastic video covering the project:

Our judges loved the custom shield, but it was the video explaining the electronics and the Arduino IoT Cloud integration that really pushed this project above others. A great build, with great potential to teach others too.

Congratulations jithin! You win the third prize: $50 cash 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!