Farnell fuels 24 hour Krakow student hackathon with Raspberry Pi and pizza!
BITEhack event in Krakow, sponsored by Farnell, challenged hundreds of students to develop a robotics design in 24 hours
Farnell, an Avnet Company and global distributor of electronic components, products and solutions, recently sponsored a 24 hour student hackathon in Krakow, Poland with tools and equipment including Raspberry Pi boards.
The 140 students in attendance at the event were also treated to free pizza, courtesy of the Farnell team, to enable them to power through the non-stop coding event.
The BITEhack event is a programming and robotics competition aimed at students, organised in the Klub Studio at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow. The event involves carrying out a project on a given topic within 24 hours in a team of up to four people. This year’s categories included Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology and Robotics. Farnell was the technological partner for the Robotics category, this year titled ‘Hear It’, challenging the participants to build a design that made use of audio technologies.
To support the students in their projects, Farnell supplied a range of tools and equipment such as Raspberry Pi, Digilent Analog Parts Kits, AC/DC power adapters from Multicomp Pro, as well as insulating tape, Ethernet cables and more.
One of the student teams competing in the Robotics category used the equipment from Farnell to design a robot support dog for people with partial or complete hearing loss. The system is designed to detect sounds around the home such as a knock at the door, after which the robot dog sends a notification to the user’s smartphone, helping them identify the sound.
Kamil Ptak, a BITEhack participant and team-member behind the robotic audio support dog, said: “Events such as BITEhack are brilliant for two reasons: they develop creative problem solving skills, and they encourage working well under pressure. Our team enjoyed laughter and jokes with the other competitors, but also fatigue over the course of the 24 hour event. It was great fun to have a range of exciting tools at our disposal throughout the event such as the Raspberry Pi boards, we didn’t have to limit our design because these products enable anything imaginable.”
Monika Galka, Marketing Manager at Farnell, said: “Farnell has long partnered with the education sector to support young, aspiring engineers in their learning and has been a partner to BITEhack on four occasions now. Krakow is a growing technological hub and as Farnell reaches its 10 year anniversary in this city, we were delighted to support this year’s BITEhack event. The student designs were inspired and it was a pleasure to see participants put Farnell equipment to use in their projects. These young engineers have the potential to change the world and Farnell is committed to supporting them in their journey today and tomorrow.”
Farnell offers a global portfolio of nearly one million products from over 2,000 world-leading suppliers available for fast delivery, as well as support from local customer service teams and in-house technical experts to help at every stage of the design process. Educational institutions can benefit from various discounts and support schemes as part of Farnell’s commitment to supporting learning for the next generation of engineers.
Visit pl.farnell.com to see how Farnell can support your journey and find out more about the BITEhack event here.
Farnell Global is a fast and reliable distributor of products and technology for electronic and industrial system design, maintenance and repair. From research and design through prototype to production, Farnell helps its customers access the products and services they need 24/7. With more than 80 years of experience, 47 localised websites, and a dedicated team of over 3,500 employees, Farnell provides every component its customers need to build the technology of tomorrow.
Farnell Global trades as Farnell in Europe, Newark in North America, and element14 in Asia Pacific. It also sells direct to consumers through its CPC business in the UK.
Farnell Global has been part of the established global technology distributor, Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT), since 2016. Today, this relationship allows the company to support its customers at every stage of the product life cycle, offering a truly unique distribution model, as well as expertise in end-to-end delivery and product design.
For more information, visit http://www.farnell.com/
