| Microsoft details finalists in student competition |
Jun. 27, 2008
 Microsoft has provided further details of the finalists in its annual Embedded Development contest, part of the overall student competition called Imagine Cup 2008. The 15 selected teams will spend Jul. 3-8 in Paris, where the company will award three winners a total of $30,000.
Microsoft bills its Imagine Cup competition as the premier technology competition for students. Besides "Embedded Development," competition categories include:- Software design
- Game development
- "Project Hoshimi" (3D comic fantasy game)
- IT challenge
- Algorithm
- Photography
- Short film
- Interface design
This year's theme, spanning all categories, was "The Environment." The competition's Embedded Development section, more specifically, asked teams of three or four competitors, and a faculty mentor, to envision a device that would have an impact on "solving some of our world's toughest problems."
The chosen finalists are now taking their hardware, software, and written presentations on the road to Paris, where they'll compete for international publicity and cash prizes. First prize winners will receive $15,000, second place winners will receive $10,000, and third place $5,000.
When the second round of the contest ended at the end of last month, a list of the 15 finalist team names, institutions, and countries was provided, as follows:- Acidrain (National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland) -- Team Acidrain's VO
- Aero@PUT -- Poznan University of Technology, Poland
- CUBE -- Tianjin University, China
- DCEites -- Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India
- Desconstruindo -- Universidade Estacio de Sa, Brazil
- Douleur Vue Ame -- Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Dwarka, New Delhi, India
- Embedded Applications Technology -- California State University, Long Beach, California
- Green Eyes -- National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
- GridVision -- University Politehnica, Bucharest, Romania
- Here Rose -- Sogang and Inha Universities, Korea
- Sun Round, Sky Around -- Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, Ukraine
- SuperRecycling -- University of Birmingham, UK
- The Shads -- Epita, Paris, France
- Trail Blazer -- Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore
- Wings -- Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
More details about the winners ...
The above list has now been fleshed out with brief details of the winning projects. For example, team Acidrain has a project called Voila (vegetable oil automobile), said to allow a diesel-powered automobile to burn plant oils safely. The project envisions a "robotic fuel line" and control of a vehicle's glow plugs via a touchscreen computer.
Team Aero@PUT has "Eopteron," a small remote-controlled electric helicopter. Equipped with accelerometers, a compass, an altimeter, GPS, a thermal imaging camera, and other equipment, this would be used to "monitor dynamic environmental processes" over a variety of landscapes.
Team CUBE has its APSLS (automatic polluting source locating system), designed to prevent factories from discharging illegal waste. The project includes a network of PH sensors and GPRS modules, to be placed along a river where potentially polluting factories are located.
Team DCEites has a project called "Jal," which coincidentally also deals with anti-pollution sensors. The proposal is for not only stationary sensors -- which would be equipped with ZigBee radios, and dispersed according to a "carefully designed algorithm" -- but also a robotic boat. The boat would be deployed to identify any non-point pollution sources.
Team Desconstruindo offers a project called "Sustainability in Optimization of Residential Electric Power Consumption." While few details were provided, this apparently involves programming Microchip Technology Incorporated's PIC microcontrollers to monitor residential energy consumption.
Team Douleur Vue Ame's project is called CVPDDC (Composite Vehicular Pollution and Dynamic Density Control). This envisions a system that would integrate traffic light control with the ability to switch off idling engines by remote control. With the help of a ZigBee-based network, engines would then automatically be restarted when a light was about to turn green.
Team Embedded Applications Technology has a project called the VerTek Solutions Power Cycling Network. According to the team's description, this embedded system would enable automatic power cycling of appliances when a home reaches and exceeds a predetermined threshold. "Our project will also give an instant update of the current power consumption of all of the devices, enabling a homeowner to be more energy-conscious," the team writes.
Team Green Eyes proposes P-Searcher (pollutant searcher), a portable device that users could carry to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in the air wherever they go. In addition to discovering this information "instantly," P-Searcher would also upload the data to a central server to share CO2 levels with others.
Team GridVision offers MINERVA (Management Information System for Early Recovery of Valuable Ambient), a mesh of low-cost sensors that would be distributed around a city to take air quality readings. "Newly built residential areas or recreational spaces are rarely put through a thorough analysis, so MINERVA will significantly increase the quality of life for those who live in or around areas prone to pollution," the team writes.
Team Here Rose has a project called the Wildlife Collision (Road Kill) Mitigation System. Its proposed devices would use stereo microphones to locate animals, then upload their locations to a website that uses Microsoft's Virtual Earth and Silverlight technologies.
Team Sun Round, Sky Around offers a Mobile Eco-Monitoring System (MES), consisting of a Windows CE-based PC, a GPS receiver, and a wireless EcoSensor that communicates with the PC to transmit a variety of environmental information. Pollution information would then be uploaded to a centralized web server.
Team SuperRecycling has devised an Intelligent Recycling Station that would include a Windows CE-based PC, a flat panel display, a barcode scanner, color-coded bins, and an optional phone for uploading information. Designed for recycling phones and other used electronics, the station would permit dropoff of products and upload information about them to a website, allowing them to be reused by others if possible.
Team The Shads offers The ABC Project, also known as "The Clever Cart." Here, a computer embedded in every shopping cart would recognize the items being chose, analyze their environmental impact compared to alternatives, and compile a global index rating the overall results of a shopping expedition.
Team Trail Blazer suggests an Environmental Monitoring System (EMS) that would integrate technologies such as video, WiFi, and ZigBee to monitor air pollution. The system would send data, including video feeds, back to a central base station for monitoring and potential enforcement.
Finally, team Wings has a project called AquaMarine, a real-time data acquisition and processing system intended to detect oil spills. The system would use infrared imagery and wireless networking to minimize the negative impact of any accidents, the team says.
Background
eBox-4300
(Click to enlarge) | |
In the first round of the Embedded Development competition, which ended Jan. 31, teams presented their ideas to Microsoft in written form. For the second round, teams were given software including Windows CE 6.0 R2 and Visual Studio 2005 Professional, along with DM&P's eBox-4300, a compact PC that includes a 500MHz Via Eden processor, 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and a Type II/II CompactFlash slot. Though teams were free to add equipment or additional software, use of Windows CE and the eBox was a required element in the competition.
  Two of this year's finalists -- Aero@PUT and DCEites -- made it into the finals in the 2007 Imagine Cup as well. Last year, the Aero@Put team fielded a project called enlEYEght (right), designed to enable early diagnosis of dyslexia. An infrared, Bluetooth-connected sensor was used to measures subjects' eye movements while they interacted with text displayed on a Pocket PC. Data was then transmitted to the eBox PC and sent over the Internet for expert analysis. The DCEites team's entry coincidentally also dealt with solving visual problems. Its "Indriyaan" project (left) was designed to read eBooks to the blind via voice synthesis, while simultaneously forming braille characters. The system could be controlled via voice command, or remotely via an integral AM receiver.
Further information
According to Microsoft, its Imagine Cup website will feature a daily blog from the finals at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, including "in-depth stories of the teams and their environmental solutions." To read this content and related video presentations, visit the Imagine Cup site from Jul. 3-8, here.
For more information on winners and finalists in last year's Imagine Cup competition, and how they employed Windows CE and the eBox 2300 -- a predecessor to the eBox-4300 used this time around -- see our coverage of the Imagine Cup 2007 Embedded Development section winners. For an interesting review of the eBox-4300 published by our sister site LinuxDevices.com, see here.
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