Microsoft announced the three winning teams in the Embedded Development category of its Imagine Cup student competition, which concluded today in Cairo, Egypt. The $25,000 first-prize winner, team Wafree from Korea, created a system that helps impoverished farmers raise stag beetles (Coleoptera Lucanidae,...
left) as food.
As Microsoft blogger Matt Bernardy noted when profiling the Wafree effort for the Imagine Cup website, "Some may find it difficult to look past the 'eww factor' of raising bugs and eating them. But, there's a sense of true innovation behind this project that has already been gaining traction in Africa."
According to the Korean team's published project overview, "insect farming is a great option for areas where there's not much fertile land, water, nor manpower, [but] it's ... not an easy task because insects are sensitive to sudden climatic changes, and insect raising requires skills and knowledge." Therefore, say team members, they decided to create a totally automated system that lets users breed beetles in captivity -- no previous experience with bugs required, either digital or analog.
As part of the project, team members cooked a batch of cookies containing Lucanidae for children in Gabon. "The children loved the Lucanidae cookies and the first batch was gone before they set the basket on the table," Bernardy writes.
Team Wafree from Korea: Yoonji Shin, Kibum Kim, Youngbu Park, and faculty mentor Sinsang Yu (Click to enlarge; not necessarily pictured in order)
While an image of the winning system has not yet been released, team Wafree (pictured, above) employed Windows CE 6.0 R2 and Visual Studio 2005 Professional, along with DM&P's eBox-4300 (right), a compact PC that includes a 500MHz Via Eden processor, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and a Type II/II CompactFlash slot. (All teams in the Embedded Development category of the Imagine Cup were free to add equipment or additional software, but use of Windows CE and the eBox was a required element in the competition.)
According to the Wafree proposal, the team found that cellular phones are more widely used than land lines in many areas of Africa, but only simple handsets are likely to be available. Therefore, the eBox-4300 in its insect breeding system is designed to communicate with a remote server by sending analog DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) signaling over a phone's handset port.
Microsoft says the $10,000 second-place prize in its Embedded Development competition went to team iSee, from China. Team members Biao Mao, Hao Peng, Xuan Zhang, Xiudong Tang, and faculty mentor Shi Yin created a device for the blind that includes a refreshable Braille display, speech synthesizer, and a module that lets users write Braille directly onto a recognition module.
The $5,000 third-place prize, meanwhile, is said to have gone to team Intellitronics, from the Ukraine. Team members Oleksandra Dudka, Sergii Makovetskyi, Vladyslav Dudka, Oleksii Ivzhenko, and faculty mentor Oleksii Ivzhenko created a mobile e-health system that is designed to monitor several patients in real time. Elements are said to have included a webcam plus infrared sensors that monitor temperature and analyze blood optically.
Background
Imagine Cup 2009 marked the seventh year of the Imagine Cup competition, which continued despite challenging financial conditions. The event, billed as the premier technology competition for students, challenges young programmers, artists, and technologists around the world to "imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today," according to Microsoft.
Replacing a Windows Embedded Student Challenge run by Microsoft in the past, the Imagine Cup's key "Embedded Development" category asked teams of three or four competitors, and a faculty mentor, to develop a "embedded device whose function it is to better us all." Twenty winning teams, listed in our previous coverage, made their way to Cairo, where they presented their devices.
In the judging over the past four days, the twenty teams were whittled down -- first to 12, and then to six. In addition to the three winning teams listed above, the other three finalist teams were as follows:
AST, from Turkey, whose "ProFarming" project is intended as an upgrade to present-day farming machinery
Brainy Brownie and the marvelous thinker threats, from Mexico, whose "Hygea" project is intended to automate treatment of heart problems
PARV, from Oklahoma, whose "ASHA (A reciprocative System for Health Automation)" is a medicine vending machine that includes speech assistance
Videos
Via YouTube, Microsoft has been providing slick, entertaining video coverage shot on the scenes at the Imagine Cup competition. We've embedded the videos released so far for your entertainment, and will add to these when further videos are available.
Day One of Imagine Cup 2009 Source: Microsoft (click to play)
Day Two of the Imagine Cup, cutting 20 teams down to 12, and finally to six Source: Microsoft (click to play)
Day Three of the Imagine Cup, where the final six faced the judges for the last time Source: Microsoft (click to play)
Day Four of the Imagine Cup, with students talking about their experiences Source: Microsoft (click to play)
Other categories in the competition
In addition to the Embedded Development competition, the Imagine Cup included eight other categories, as follows:
Software Design, where students create real-world software and services applications that use Microsoft tools and technology, such as the .NET Framework and Microsoft Windows
Game Development, where students create a new game that uses Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio
Robotics and Algorithm, where students must navigate a series of brainteasers, code challenges and algorithmic puzzles
IT Challenge, where students are challenged to develop, deploy and maintain IT systems that are elegant, functional, robust and secure
MashUp, where students are challenged to create a new and useful Web 2.0 application using Microsoft's PopFly site
Photography, where students communicate a story that "explores a critical issue through a photo essay of inspiring still images"
Short Film, where students create an original short film and also "demonstrate excellence in filmmaking at all levels"
Design, where students create an innovative design for easier-to-use machines that help improve human interactions
Prizes for Imagine Cup 2009 totaled more than $180,000 across the nine event categories, Microsoft says. Given other expenses such as air fares, accommodations, hardware giveaways, and employee salaries, it's easy to imagine the event costing the company at least a quarter of a million dollars overall -- a laudable investment in difficult economic times.
Meantime, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced in April that Poland will be the venue for the 2010 Imagine Cup. Signaling that the event will continue despite difficult economic times, he stated, "Some of the greatest innovations and companies of tomorrow will be created by today's students. The Imagine Cup presents a fantastic opportunity for them to compete."
In addition to the Imagine Cup competition for students, Microsoft offers the Sparks Will Fly Contest, open to anyone except full-time Microsoft employees. Launched in October of last year, the 2009 version of the contest asked competitors to dream up Windows CE-based devices they'd like to see in the home of the future. For details of the winning devices, which were presented earlier this year at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in San Jose, see our earlier coverage, here.
Further information
To read more details about Microsoft's Embedded Development competition winners, and to find out the winners in the other contest categories listed above, see the company's website, here.
Meanwhile, more coverage may appear on Microsoft's Imagine Cup YouTube page, here, Twitter feed, here, and Facebook fan site, here.
While an image of the winning system has not yet been released, team Wafree (pictured, above) employed Windows CE 6.0 R2 and Visual Studio 2005 Professional, along with DM&P's eBox-4300 (right), a compact PC that includes a 500MHz Via Eden processor, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and a Type II/II CompactFlash slot. (All teams in the Embedded Development category of the Imagine Cup were free to add equipment or additional software, but use of Windows CE and the eBox was a required element in the competition.)
