Community members have four ways to expand their sensors knowledge and win great prizes

element14, an Avnet community, is continuing its “Summer of Sensors” with a series of four design challenges that encourage participants to advance their skillsets and showcase what sensors can do.

For each challenge, participants will receive one of four free kits provided by “Summer of Sensors” sponsors: Renesas, ST Microelectronics, Vishay and Mikroe. For each challenge, sponsored participants must use the provided products within their project and blog about their build process in at least five separate posts, including one detailing the final outcome of their project. Good integration of the challenge kit components and an interesting resolution of the prompts, as well as posts that are media-rich with photos, videos and code samples, will be graded favorably by the judges.

Below are the four design challenges, kit components, and sample projects:

• In the Air Tonight – Best Air Quality Application Wins: Each sponsored challenger will receive a gas sensor from Renesas. Sample projects could be anything from a COVID-19 air monitor, to a monitor that detects the air quality in a welding shop.

• TAG You’re it – Best Use of NFC Smart Asset Tracking Wins: Each sponsored challenger will receive an NFC Dynamic Tag Sensor Node from ST Microelectronics. Sample projects could be anything from a theft prevention device, to medical monitoring, or even a hazardous materials handling system.

• Exploration Station – Best Use of the SensorXplorer Sensors Wins:Each sponsored challenger will receive a SensorXplorer from Vishay along with sensor modules for color, ambient light, proximity, and gesture sensing. Sample projects could be anything from applications in IoT, consumer and industrial for object detection, gesture control, automatic system wake-up, brightness control, lighting control, color detection and more.

• Under Pressure – Best Use of Bio Sensors Wins: Each sponsored challenger will receive a range of products from Mikroe which can sense and measure a variety of physiological responses including oxygen levels, ESG\GSR, and heart rate as well as an Arduino UNO. Projects could be anything from a COVID-19 health monitoring system, to elderly monitoring, or even long-term monitoring for patients with chronic conditions.

“With sensors playing an integral role in just about everything our community members create, we knew one design challenge could never capture all of the different possibilities,” said Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Social Media and Community at element14. “We’re thrilled to be hosting four separate design challenges to quadruple the number of our community members who can participate and greatly expand the range of products they can create.”

Applications for the “Summer of Sensors” design challenges are open now through July 25. Challengers will be announced on July 29, with challenge kits shipped the same day. Final projects will be due on October 7, with winners announced and prizes shipped later that month.

element14 will reward a grand prize winner for each challenge with an 11” iPad Pro with 128GB and WiFi, a $915 value. Grand prize winners will also receive an additional item for each challenge, ranging from a Philips AC0820 Series 8 Air Purifier for the In the Air Tonight challenge to a Garmin GPS Rugged Smart Watch for the Exploration Station challenge. In addition, finishers for all four of the design challenges will each receive a MultiComp Pro Multimeter Set.

For more information and to apply to participate in any of the four challenges, please visit Community.element14.com/SummerOfSensorsDC.