Last week we showed you a few projects submitted to the Texas Instruments microcontroller (MCU) design contest. Are you eager to learn more? Check out some more of the innovative submissions:

 Time to think for a bigger cause - The paper Automated irrigation system using solar power, published in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ICECE), inspired one team to implement this social theme with embedded hardware. The team was influenced to use the most abundant or renewable source of energy as a power origin to the automation system, making it truly Green. This eco-friendly solution looks to solve the irrigation problems of many developing countries, ensuring cost effectiveness. The team feels that this solution will benefit agriculture-based countries and simultaneously improve the production rate. Take a look here.

The idea of home automation has been a hot topic, but there still isn’t a single platform in this field that would enable third party developers to modify the system. The scope of the PLC and Wi-Fi Based Home Automation Solution is to provide a affordable and easy-to-install home automation solution. A state-of-the-art programmable logic controller (PLC) is used to achieve this using existing media (power lines) for a safe and continuous communications channel that can be remotely accessed from anywhere in the world using a standard Wi-Fi® connection and an Android mobile phone.

The electric vehicle regenerative breaking system with supercapacitor and BLDC motor stores braking energy to the battery by storing high-current electrical energy to the super capacitor rapidly and transfers the same to the battery slowly. Find out how it works here.  

As it is known and widespread, data leakage is extensive and despite several measures, there has been little done to prevent security breaches. To address this problem, one team created the USB-powered cloud storage device by removing the concept of having a flash memory inside a USB MSC device and replacing it with network connectivity. By integrating the cloud with a USB Storage device, the team provides a more robust level of security than the conventional USB Storage.

Saving power is one of the key concerns in the world today. To control the redundancy in power supply, the S&S and Karmic Design team developed a smart remote control system with automatic/manual controlling of remote electronic appliances over the Internet. It makes use of an Internet connection to control and monitor electronic or electrical appliances remotely using a smartphone or PC that has an Internet connection, thus enabling a user to control excess power supply and operate the appliances tenuously. A demonstration video is available at here.

Results for this design contest are available at www.ti.com/timdc2014.

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