The Giant Board SBC Contest - Winners announced!
We were thrilled to collaborate with Crowd Supply on our Giant Board SBC contest. Since we were inundated with excellent, innovative projects, selecting just three winners was a difficult feat. Creating can be tricky enough, but our inspiring Electromaker community rallied in the midst of pandemic, overcoming not only the usual troubleshooting that goes hand-in-hand with any do-it-yourself endeavor (if you haven’t had to troubleshoot, you might not be doing it correctly!), but a global health crisis. Under normal circumstances, we’d be impressed enough. But considering the current COVID-19 pandemic, major thanks to all of our participants, whether you submitted a Giant Board SBC project or support us as avid readers.
A huge shoutout to Microchip and Groboards as well. Without further ado, our winners!
Prize winners announced below!
Prize winners
The Giant Board SBC Contest
We're thrilled to announce that we've partnered with Microchip for another contest! Last time, we received a slew of neat projects such as an IoT incubator, domestic central heating radiator optimiser, and the pick a plant! This time around, we’re once again excited to see what creative projects you come up with.
Prize List
First Prize : $1,250 Cash
Second Prize : $500 Cash
Third Prize : $250 Cash
Apply For Your Free Giant Board
Entering is simple. Just come up with a unique project idea that incorporates the Giant Board and submit your idea to us using 150 words. Once you receive your board you can start building your project while using the Electromaker platform to document your build along the way. We will then judge all submitted project entries and award the cash prizes. The timeline can be found at the bottom of this page.
Please note the free hardware period has now ended.
What Is The Giant Board?
Despite its small footprint, the Giant Board is capable of big things. It's a single-board computer (SBC) crammed into a microcontroller form factor that doesn't skimp on power. Based on the Adafruit Feather form factor, the Giant Board straddles the line between maker board and microcontroller. Capable of running full-fledged Linux distributions, this SBC rocks a Microchip SAMA5D2 ARM® Cortex®-A5 Processor 500 MHz processor. There's 128MB of DDR2 RAM, and an onboard microSD card slot. Plus, there are tons of different connections such as a USB with LiPo battery support, 20 GPIOs, and more. As such, the Giant Board is a novel fusion between SBC and microcontroller. You can use a Giant Board for everything from running Doom to streaming media and building complex robotics and IoT projects. The only limit is your creativity!
Adafruit FeatherWing and Blinka Support
Helpfully, the Giant Board rocks support for the popular and capable FeatherWing ecosystem. Hailing from Adafruit, Feather is a line of development boards ready for prototyping. Because the Giant Board supports accessories within the FeatherWing family, it’s incredibly easy to get started creating. Coupled with Linux support, the Giant Board is ready for use out-of-the-box with minimal set up. Onboard, there’s an Adafruit FeatherWing pinout for connectivity with over 60 add-on boards. You can spin up projects easily with CircuitPython. LCD, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi FeatherWing boards may be tacked onto the Giant Board for added functionality.
Moreover, the Giant Board touts Adafruit Blinka support, or CircuitPython for Linux. Essentially, the Blinka repository is a collection of CircuitPython packages. With FeatherWing and Blinka support, Giant Board is prepped for your development and programming needs. Tinker away!
We've got 50 boards to give away, so get your pitches ready!
Giant Board Specs:
- Microchip SAMA5D2 ARM® Cortex®-A5 Processor 500 MHz processor
- 128MB DDR2 RAM
- microSD card slot
- USB with LiPo battery support
- Runs Linux
- Adafruit FeatherWing and Blinka compatibility
Software and Resources
The Groboards website offers a few different resources for getting started with the Giant Board. Groboard documentation includes basics such as making a bootable microSD card and logging in. Additionally, you'll find forums with helpful information for your maker journey.
Timeline
February 3rd 2020 : Project ideas submission form open
March 3rd 2020: Project ideas submission form closed
March 5th 2020: Giantboard shipped to successful applicants
July 7th 2020: Project writeup submission deadline
July 14th 2020: Announce contest winners