The Ottawa Arduino Challenge is a fun and friendly challenge organized by the Ottawa Arduino User Group. The contest is online so anyone can enter and vote but the support meetups are local to Ottawa.

It’s purpose is to increase community connectivity and constructive experimentation. It invites it’s participants to learn to share their project and discover support and friendship within their community.

Participants receive a mystery sensor for their project. Regular meetings are held for support. Winners are determined by an online voting process which encourages participants to share their project. This contest is designed for fun by volunteers. So please feel free to come forward with suggestions, support or to join the volunteer team.

More challenges in the works!

Register for next challenge!

Register for clock challenge!

Leaderboard

Mustafa & Mahdi Karmali, Traffic Light

Mustafa and Mahdi’s clearly put a lot of effort into their amazing Traffic Light project.

They were also very successful with sharing their project as they acquired 57 votes.

I’m looking forward to seeing what else they get up to.

Peter Sjoberg , Kinetic Lance

This Kinetic Lance project is made from a bubble blower and a long circuit board.

It is a lance that registers a point for going a specific distance from your opponent. Too close and you loose a life to discourage contact. It registers your points on it’ display and makes cool sounds.

There is a debug mode as well. If you turn it on while blocking the sensor it will then register a distance readout.

It uses lower voltage so has a boost converter, a display and other LEDs.

Rick Alexanderson, Peter the Robot

Rick Alexanderson from St. Peter High School  has been working on Peter The Robot. This is one of many candidate project ideas for his students in the upcoming academic year.

It has an IR remote control and a bread board for experimentation with various sensors.

It also has a digital readout for debugging and displaying various conditions.

It is driven by two off the shelf motors with gear boxes. It uses some boards that have h-bridge circuits.

Doug Commons, Experimental Robot

This robot project has a lot of interesting elements.

It’s a wand shape and has a motor at one end. The other end has a bearing so it can be tethered and spin around.

There is a collection of addressable LEDs so it can use POV (persistence of vision) to display patterns.

A sensor is used to detect a dark spot underneath to synchronize the image.

When left to it’s own devices on the floor it spins around and drifts with a Brownian motion. Much like a fruit fly.

Darcy Whyte (organizer), Rolly Robot

This robot project is a simple locomotion robot that uses two large wheels.

The two wheels are it’s only point of contact with the ground since the body balances like a gondola underneath the wheel’s axis.

The body is just right to add a bread board to test whatever sensors you want. In this video it is being tested with an IR sensor.

Jean-Claude Batista and Ray Gould, Raysonator

The Raysonator is a theremin musical instrument.

It uses a sensor to detect your distance from it and then makes sounds based on the data.

It’s a great simple project.

It sounds really cool and what a great first project to show on JC’s new Web site. 🙂

Olaf Baumann et. al., Coin Sorter and Counter

Olaf and his kids are working on a Coin Sorter Counter.

Coins roll down an incline and past the IR sensor.

The time the beam is broken is measured and it reads out what type of coin it is based on the time the sensor was active.

It’s a great proof of concept and I think this would be an ideal school project.

This is inspiring, it makes me want to make one.

Dave Hunt, Distance Sensor

Dave made this cool interactive Distance Sensor.

You place your hand under the arm and it will follow your hand up and down.

It uses a servo to move the arm and was made on his very own laser cutter.

It is a great opportunity to experiment with control systems.

Dave also helped organize this contest/challenge. He made the reference circuit which is found at his Web site as well.

Raman Yousif, Robot

Raman worked on this Robot which will use hacked servos as drives.

He explored Sketchup, 3D printing, Arduino and other elements of designing such a system.

I believe Raman is especially interested in robots that do real work such as robotic vaccum cleaners and such.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Raman does in the future.

Jordan Louis, Temerature Sensivive PC Lighting

This is a cool project revival. Check out his Web site for more updates! Temperature Sensitive PC Lighting

Although the official challenge is over, I will add more updates to this leaderboard as people report back.

Jaime Yu, Bus Stop Estimator, Richard Sloan, Matt Glaude – Bike Accessory, Britta Evans, Paul Kourany, Mimi Golding, Bernard C, Dragos Calitoiv, Frank Scaffidi, Sathish Anand, Wade Dallaire, Kevin Nesdoly, Michel Desormeaux, Andrew Bachelor, Rod James, Eben Schaeffer (Guelph)

Prizes

Arduio Uno from Newark claimed by Peter Sjoberg

Artengine 3 month membership claimed by Rick Alexanderson

Spark Core (More information) claimed by Mustafa & Mahdi Karmali

A Spark T-Shirt

Zen Walkalong Glider

Bragging Rights – claimed by all who have expanded their knowledge.

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Winners will choose prizes in the order of their standings.

Reports

Contest Rules

The person with the highest number of votes will choose a prize from whatever is in the prize bin. Then the person with the next highest and so forth till all the prizes are gone. Any ties will be broken by choosing the one that posted their project the earliest.