About
After the successful hackathon challenge run in the IEEE Students’ Hackathon at Metrology for Industry 4.0 and IoT, DIAL is organising the first full event of this kind targeted at students of the University of Cambridge. This hackathon invites students to address creatively some of the real-world digital problems manufacturing SMEs face by using low-cost off-the-shelf and open-source technologies.
The Hackathon aims at the construction of digital solution prototypes in areas such as inventory management, process monitoring and human-machine interaction requiring students to work with sensors, develop mobile apps and program low-cost microcomputers and microcontrollers such as Raspberry Pis and Arduinos.
Challenges
Inventory management is an area where many manufacturing SMEs believe they could benefit from the use of digital technology. In this challenge, participants will develop a low-cost system that can detect whether a bay in a shelf is occupied. The system must be able to attach to an existing shelving set-up (without modifying the shelves).
Many SMEs are looking to move from printed drawings to digital drawings to reduce paper usage and ensure that workers always have the latest revisions. However, interacting with a digital system while working can be difficult, especially for jobs like welding where operators wear PPE-like gloves. In this challenge, participants will develop a low-cost system that uses an open source voice assistant to convert workers’ voice commands into navigation instructions for a drawing viewer program.
Many SMEs have key pieces of equipment that do not provide interfaces for data extraction. For instance, control panels present operational data through the combination of dials, lights, position buttons and displays. In this challenge, participants will develop a non-invasive low-cost system capable of monitoring a control panel, extracting operational data, and making it available in digital format.
Organisers
This hackathon is organised by the Distributed Information and Automation Laboratory at the Institute for Manufacturing, and Cambridge University Engineering Society.
Supported by
With thanks to the supporters of this event:
Interested in finding out how you could run a hackathon?
Find out how your FE College, company or organisation can get involved in a Shoestring hackathon by emailing us at: contact@digitalshoestring.net