Early in March, students put their heads together at North Carolina State University to create the next big thing in hardware. Betaversity hosted the first ever Buildathon at NC State’s Raleigh Centennial Campus. Betaversity is a company that focuses on learning-by-doing experiences, helping schools establish Makerspaces and collaboration areas, hosting workshops and bringing along their mobile design lab called the Betabox for students to learn how to design products and turn ideas into reality.
The contest ran for two weeks, culminating in a final build sprint at the Betabox on March 5. Betaversity experts supervised the teams and helped them get familiar with the different rapid prototyping resources available in the Betabox. More than 120 students organized into 22 individual teams participated in the buildathon.
Texas Instruments provided the necessary tools for students to create a truly connected project. Teams used the TI LaunchPad development kit as the brain for their embedded systems. The Betabox provides white boards for ideation and team collaboration, an electronics workbench, 3D-printer, laser cutter and a 4G LTE Wi-Fi® hotspot. With these tools at hand, teams had what they needed to quickly build a product prototype.
Five teams were selected to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and community members to determine the top three winners.
The third place project was a device called Simon Says Sit – a pet treat dispenser that works like the Game “Simon Says.” If the dog copies the owner’s pattern, the device dispenses a treat. The student that designed Simon Says Sit received a LaunchPad for their project, and even used the LaunchPad to help build the prototype. Take a look at the Simon Says Sit on Atlas, the online engineering portfolio platform from Betaversity.
The second place project was a finely polished project called AutoTap. The AutoTap is a small, electronic beer faucet that fits onto existing fittings, replacing the current manual faucets with the goal of redefining the way beer is dispensed. Check out their entire design process here.
 |
 |
And finally, the winner of the Betaversity Buildathon was a Wi-Fi Automated Temperature Control System for Stove-Top Tea Kettles.
 |
 |
Click here to see the process behind this amazingly intricate project or view the below video.
The top three teams won prizes including license keys to the Code Composer Studio IDE, t-shirts and more. These projects showcased the ingenuity and resourcefulness of this group of students. The Betaversity Buildathon and TI’s LaunchPad development kits energized the campus with a new passion for creativity in technology. See you at the next one!
