Prizes won on giveaways and contests

Hey everyone, how are you doing today? I'm feeling great this week. 

   I am a very connected and active member of forums (Arduino, Arduino Brazil, ARM community), active twitter user ( @embedded_clovis ) and follower of a bunch of +Google+ channels; all those connections often lead to get to know prize posts, giveaways, contests and all kinds of social activities. 

   Ever since I started being more connected to technology blogs/forums/websites I have entered a bunch of contests, even winning prizes!. The very first of them was a +Freescale FRDM-K64F board (May 2014), which I won by commenting about a project idea on Freescale's Google+. I have used it to develop a weather station datalogger, which can be seen here. The board can be seen below.

   Next prize I have won (around September 2014) was a +HACKADAY Prize T-shirt, due to having my #HackadayPrize project selected to the quarterfinals. The project can be seen in this link, and the T-shirt picture is below.

   The year of 2015 started very well for me, because I have won three prizes so far: the first is the DFRobot's Bluno Beetle, an Arduino-compatible Bluetooth 4.0 board (ATMEGA328+BLE): I proposed a project idea using it, that read "A sensor node for road running (recording variables like GPS position, acelerometer and gyroscope data, temperature, humidity, altitude). My final goal is to generate a DIY road running wrist watch!". Keep tuned on this blog to get along the development of the project. 

   Second prize I have won so far is a NXP LPC4330-Xplorer boand, due to having subscribed to the ARM MCU desing contest, which aims to advertise the power of ARM+Keil short development cycle. The board (seen below) features a dual-core ARM Cortex-M4, making it very good for audio processing.

   Third prize I have won this year is a SAM4L8 Xplained Pro board, featuring an ARM Cortex-M4, on a Prize post at the ARM Embedded Community forum. I have proposed making a DAQ (data acquisition) system; stay tuned in this blog to get along the progress of development. 

   If you guys like, I also have a project on the 2015 Hackaday Prize (#2015HackadayPrize), which is an Open source weather station called FacilTempo, and can be seen here. I appreciate suggestions and critique, as well as new ideas.

FacilTempo weather Station

The Hackaday Prize 2015 !

Hello readers, how are you doing today?

   So I´m back to this blog after some time, now to spread the word about an incredible opportunity form the Hackaday website team: today is the beginning of a new Hackaday prize, the @HackadayPrize 2015!. This is a maker competition in which you can submit your idea to change the world (or just to water your plants more efficiently..), and for which there is a go-to-space first prize.

   I have entered a project in the 2014 edition, having reached the quarter-finals with mine `chip timing for running clubs´, you can see my project in here. For this year´s prize, I am planning to enter this open source weather station here, which features a bunch of sensors and communications options, all of that being supplied by a fraction-of-watt solar panel!.
   By the way, the 2014 champion was a project called satNOGS, satellite tracking stations. So if you guys have any project idea and would like to share it (and maybe win a trip to space and many other perks), enter the Hackaday prize now!. See you guys soon.

A cheap Chip Tag for every Running club

Hello folks, 

   Today's post is about my entry to the Hackaday Prize, a competition that will take its winner to space :) . The objective of the competition is to make (and show the world how you did) projects that are in some way "connected": any kind of communication is valid. There is already a plenty of projects being showed there, and I think mine is a bit special: it is related to something that I love doing and will help me doing it better.

   I am talking about road Running; I have been running for three years now and I always feel frustrated when there is no chip-timing in the small races I participate, or even in trail or stairs races. Of course everyone can have a GPS-enable Cellphone or wrist-watch, but the first ones are not always comfortable to carry and the last one in not cheap enough for everyone to have it.

   So I came up with a hack solution (link here) that may revolutionize small running communities and clubs: An Arduino-sized device that reads RFID tags and communicates to any Android cellphone via Bluetooth. So every runner will only carry a small key-chain sized RFID tag and all the processing is done into the reader, that will finally send runner's time and name to an App to be developed on Android.

   The actual schematic for the project is seen above; I haven't started putting the hardware together yet because the parts are still being shipped to me, but have started the programming, that will probably be done into a Freescale FRDM-K64F board (features an ARM Cortex-M4 inside). 

   More details to come as I advance into the project. Get updated on my Google Plus: +Clovis Fritzen and my Twitter: @ClovisDuino. See you guys later,