Electromaker of the Month - August Winners

August was a scorcher - even if it wasn't hot where you live. The Electromaker Community was on fire with a variety of wild and wonderful projects ranging from simple getting started guides to fully fledged IoT prototypes and tinyML implementations. It's always hard to choose winners, but these three projects were picked by our judges to win prizes this month!

In case you missed it - Electromaker of the Month celebrates the top three community projects (as picked by a panel of judges) and rewards them with prototyping hardware from Nordic Semiconductor and some fine swag to boot!

1. Build Your Own Qr Code Lock And Manage It Through Our Apps

This project is part of a much larger endeavor by a group of Polish students. Electromaker Community member suawek013 is part of a group called TheIoTProject, which is building its own framework for cloud-based smart building controls.

In this example, they show how to generate short or long-term QR codes granting access to a building via electronic locks.

This early iteration shows how much work has already gone into the project. While a relay currently stands in place of an electronic lock, the system is already showing smooth operation on the software side, and some thoughtful additions to the hardware. The project is still ongoing, and you can follow the team's progress on their YouTube channel.

Our judges loved how this young team approached the software side of this project, but were also particularly impressed with the idea of using a motion sensor to trigger the QR code reader, saving power and making the system as efficient as possible.

Congratulations, suawek013, you and your team win the top Electromaker of the Month prize - a whole boatload of Nordic Semiconductor prototyping gear!

You'll also be getting a bunch of Electromaker Swag and a $50 Amazon gift voucher!

2. Real Time Smoke Detection with Sensor Fusion

In second this month is blatts01 with a TinyML smoke detection project featuring the Arduino Nicla Sense ME, and a whole fusion of different sensors. This project used the Neuton no-code AI platform to train a model in the cloud, allowing the creator to focus on the hardware code.

This robust proof of concept is designed to differentiate between actual smoke and other airborne particles that could trigger false alarms. As with all AI projects, this concept can only improve over time with more training data and iterations over hardware. It's a fantastic start to a project with real-world fire prevention implications.

Our judges were impressed with the way a potentially difficult concept came to life as a working prototype using multiple forms of already existing smoke detection, and combining them using machine learning.

3. Wireless Audio Transmission Using Li-fi

In third place this month is yeshvanth-m with a project that sends sound wirelessly. Big deal, right? We send sound over all kinds of different radio waves in our Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enriched lives and have been listening to tunes on the radio for over a century. This project is a little different, though - it sends sound using light.

The sound you hear in the above video is sent via the fast pulsing of the laser onto two solar panels. On the transmitting end, there is a Red Pitaya - a powerful engineer's swiss army knife capable of acting as an oscilloscope and waveform generator in one - along with the breakout circuitry required for the laser module. The solar panels each have their own amplifying circuit attached to a speaker. 

Our judges loved this project for its inventive use of a complex technological concept. Li-Fi is not something you hear about often, and to get a working proof of concept going with such simple parts is a real achievement. Congratulations!

Second and Third place wins a big bag of Nordic and Electromaker Swag, including a BLE dongle for creating custom Bluetooth Low Energy projects!

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!