The Future of Resilient Cities: Engineering Challenge
Create sustainable and thriving communities that are well-equipped to face future challenges. Win up to $7,000+ in prizes!
Engineers and innovators are invited to participate in the Resilient City challenge hosted by Hackster and Microchip. The top proposals will be awarded AVRIoT Cellular Mini hardware, and participants will have the opportunity to win up to $7000+ in prizes.
What are resilient cities?
Resilient cities are places that prioritize preparedness, proactive planning, and the implementation of innovative strategies to build and maintain strong foundations that can withstand and recover quickly from disruptions.
By establishing efficient waste management systems, preserving natural habitats, and encouraging predictive maintenance options, resilient cities can improve the overall quality of life for residents by adopting cloud-connected sensor technologies to drive useful insight to help identify potential risks, develop emergency response plans, and implement early warning systems.
Building resilient cities
In this contest, we are asking participants to use Microchip's AVR-IoT Cellular Mini to develop and demonstrate a comprehensive system that reads sensor data and then creates an action to address the following smart city scenarios:
- Predictive Maintenance: Design and implement a predictive maintenance system that can accurately monitor and predict the health of industrial machinery or equipment related to city infrastructure. Use sensor data, machine learning algorithms, and IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity to enable real-time condition monitoring, fault detection, and proactive maintenance scheduling.
- Waste Management: Devise an innovative waste management strategy that minimizes waste generation, optimizes waste collection and disposal processes, and promotes recycling and sustainable practices. This may include developing smart waste monitoring systems, waste segregation techniques, recycling programs, waste-to-energy conversion technologies, or any other creative solution aimed at reducing waste and promoting environmental sustainability.
- Automated Conservation Actions: Participants should leverage devices to monitor the presence and behavior of various species or natural resources within the city. Use the device to trigger automated actions, such as activating sprinklers during dry periods to support plant life or deploying deterrents to keep animals away from sensitive areas. Use sensor data to help assess the health of the habitat and identify bio-diversity, help track population trends, migration patterns, and changes in animal behavior, aid in corridor management, reduce the risk of animal-vehicle collisions, etc. For example: when an animal shows up, take a picture.
While these are great areas to focus on, if you have a killer idea that falls outside any of these areas that are unique to your city/community, that’s fantastic, too!
Key dates:
Contest begins: November 14, 2023 at 2:00 PM PST
Applications for hardware close: December 10, 2023 at 12:00 PM PST
Hardware recipients announced: December 18, 2023 at 12:00 PM PST
Submissions close: February 29, 2024 at 12:00 PM PST
Winners announced by Mar 25, 2024
Prizes
We are giving away thousands of dollars in prizes to the top 14 projects! Our judges will pick the best qualifying 14 projects based on the judging criteria outlined in the rules section.
100 pieces of AVR-IoT Cellular Mini will be awarded to the top proposals!
Use the contest discord channel here to interact with other peers and for community technical support. We will be organizing office hours with judges and Microchip engineers as the contest progresses.
Hackster will be organizing office hours with judges and Microchip engineers as the contest progresses!