The 2011 chipKIT Challenge invited participants to design an Open Source energy-efficient and eco-friendly device using a Microchip's chipKIT™ Max32™ development board +MPIDE.  In addition, they will need to design an extension card developed using the DesignSpark's PCB tool. 

All entries were submitted as open source projects, and will be shared with the community, allowing others to gain  from the participants knowledge and expertise.

The Competition is now closed (27th March 2012). 

Winning entries shared a prize of US Dollars $10,000 cash! 

First Prize

Congratulations to Dean Boman with his winning entry for a chipKIT based Energy Monitoring System

The Energy Monitoring System (EMS) provides real-time home electrical energy usage data to the occupants so informed energy usage decisions can be made.  The system hosts a web server that provides a web page with the current energy usage on a circuit-by-circuit basis.  In addition, the system interfaces with the overall home automation system so long term monitoring and logging can be accomplished.

Second Prize
 

Congratulations to Raul Alvarez Torrico for his chipKIT based Home Energy Gateway

The objective of this project is to design and implement a prototype of a Home Energy Gateway that provides end users the ability to remotely monitor energy consumption and control household devices and lights in their homes. To achieve this, a chipKIT Max32 based embedded Gateway / Web Server has been implemented that communicates with two kinds of smart devices in the house: One Smart Meter that monitors the average active real power consumption of the whole house and several Smart Plugs in a Home Area Wireless Network to which are attached household devices and lights.



Third Prize

Congratulations to Graig Pearson for his chipKIT based PV Array Tracker

SunSeeker is a controller which keeps solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays facing directly into the sun at all times. It is generally accepted that tracking the sun results in an annual increase in power production of about 30%. The major challenge is dealing with the infinite variety of weather and sky conditions. My design philosophy is to do as much in software as possible and keep the hardware simple. In spite of that, the circuit board is more than twice the size of the Max32, mostly due to the power electronics and surge protection devices. This contest submission is a design platform for developing the software algorithms to produce a high performance array tracker. 

The following Projects had Honourable Mentions by the Judges

Solar Powered Handheld PIC18 IDE
Submitted by Jaromir Sukuba




Wireless Mesh Network Time Server
Submitted by John Schuch

 
MPPT Boost Converter
Submitted by Ian Johnson, and team mates, Sajjad Lalji and David Weight

 

Eco Friendly Home Automation and Monitoring Harvesting Controller
Submitted by Manuel Iglesias Abbatemarco 
 

Internet Enabled Multizone Thermostat
Submitted by Curtis Brooks

More about Open Source

Please note, all entries apply to the Open Source BSD License for Software and the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license design for hardware.  See Terms and Conditions for further information. 

Brommers tells us more about the chipKIT