Energy Harvesting Road Test Design Challenge gets into gear
Projects begin to take shape as engineers develop range of innovative low power devices
April 23, 2013 –London, UK – element14 launches its latest green design challenge Energy Harvesting Solutions on Earth Day 2013, with seven competitors from around the world competing to develop an innovative energy harvesting solution with the most potential for real-world application.
Selected from over 75 entrants, the competitors are developing projects that use Energy Harvesting technology to either replace a device that uses battery or mains power, or utilise an entirely new design with the help of Wurth Elektronik's collaborative Energy Harvesting Solution to Go Kit, in partnership with Energy Micro and Linear Technology, supplied by element14.
The ultimate winner, to be announced in July, will be judged on the potential of the prototype to be practical to the point where it can be developed into genuine and mainstream products. The quality of supporting content produced during the course of the competition, including blogs, videos and designs will also be considered in the final judging process.
With entries received from around the world, the competition represents the global commitment to innovation and the green agenda from the engineering community. The competition finalists are based in the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and the USA.
The projects under development demonstrate the diverse interests and backgrounds of element14's community of engineers, including a gesture-activated remote control, a battery-less carbon monoxide detector, a homebrew monitoring kit that harvests the excess heat from fermentation to power the monitor and an innovative solution for powering an artificial reptile environment.
"We've really enjoyed receiving the huge range of different project proposals from engineers across the globe over the last few months," said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Community, element14. "Selecting the final seven competitors was a difficult process, but we're very excited to see how the projects develop over the next few months. Choosing the final winner will be even tougher, but with an innovative product with green credentials taking shape from the result, the winner could have a big impact. There are strong implications for the environment in the development of low power devices that don't require the use of batteries."
element14 hosted a Google Hangout where competitors' discussed their plans and any questions with Energy Micro's Filip Dovland.
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About element14
Launched in June 2009, element14 is the first information portal, collaborative community and electronics store specifically built for electronic design engineers. The community recently unveiled its element14 knode, a unique automated platform that enables engineers to quickly research, design, develop and prototype in a single, intelligent environment. element14 is an innovative offering from Premier Farnell plc (LSE:pfl), FTSE 250, a leader in multi-channel electronics distribution trading throughout Europe (Farnell), the Americas (Newark) and Asia Pacific (element14). The company had group sales of £973.9m and underlying profits of £104.6m last year.
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