The element14 community announces winners of its Safe and Sound Design Challenge sponsored by Texas Instruments

Winner Safe and Sound

element14, the world’s largest electronic design community, has announced winners of it’s ‘Safe and Sound’ design challenge. Sponsored by Texas Instruments, element14 challenged 15 community members to conceive and build a ‘safe and sound’ wearable to steer the world close to our vision of improving personal protection.

The application areas for this challenge were endless, touching on all areas of work and life, from walking home by one’s self late at night or working within an industrial setting with potential personal safety risks. The goal of the element14 Safe and Sound challenge was to solve personal safety risks with wearable technology.

The Judges were highly impressed by the variety of projects submitted for the challenge. The top two entries were:

• Grand Prize Winner, Douglas Wong from Canada created an Invisible Hazardous Environmental Factors Monitoring System (image left). A clear winner, the judges were highly impressed with the quality of this prototype which they believe could save many lives. His project scans the immediate environment for dangerous levels of radiation, carbon monoxide, dangerous alcohol levels and other toxic gasses to protect the wearer from harm. Modules have clean and easy-to-use user interfaces, coupled with neat and tidy 3D printed cases. The quality of videos, photos, code, and blog content produced was also exemplary.

• Runner Up, Dale Winhold, also from Canada developed a Cold Weather Survival Suit addressing the theme of the challenge perfectly. This project is a great working design concept for a product that could save lives and Dale's use of weaved flexible carbon strips was a great design choice.

The challenge also inspired the development of Safety Jackets for the Tolling Industry, Wearable tracking devices for miners and a T-shirt for Monitoring Elderly and Physically Challenged Patients. 

Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Content and Community, element14 said: “This was an important challenge for the community as our members were developing products that could save lives in real world situations – I am delighted to say that they rose to the challenge once again. There is a strong spirit in the community, something which will value immensely, and this design challenge has seen our member push themselves and each other further than ever before. We were particularly impressed with the quality of the prototype developed by our grand prize winner Douglas Wong – an entry that has real potential in the marketplace. ”

Jan Pape – Director of Distribution EMEA, at Texas Instruments said: “Through the latest “Safe&Sound challenge”, the element14 community is proving to me again the true value of our partnership with PremierFarnell/element14. Having the opportunity to expose really great innovative minds to those technologies, which we at TI believe will help to make the world a better and safer place, continues to be very exciting and valuable to us. I would like to congratulate all the participants for a great job done, as well as element14 for running another very stimulating and exciting design challenge with technologies and solutions from Texas Instruments.”

Entries were judged on originality, innovation and technical merit by a panel of judges including experts from Texas Instruments and element14. The winners posted blogs and videos during the competition and you can find out more about their individual projects by visiting https://www.element14.com/safeandsound