People should build something that matters. The ones who actually do so end up shaping the world. We are proud to announce the ten finalists for the 2015 Hackaday Prize.
The problems that these projects tackle come from many different angles. Some improve safety in extreme situations by giving emergency workers the ability to detect the presence of dangerous gases, or by helping to find unexploded munitions in war-torn areas. Others make improvements in transportation by working on transportation where infrastructure is poor, and looking toward the future of electric vehicle transportation. There are projects that tackle pollution through monitoring and also by scrubbing pollutants from indoor air. Improvements in wheelchair mobility and advancements in prosthetics can transform the lives of people living with loss of function. And feeding the world can start with more automated farming options, and becoming more efficient with farming methods. These are the problems the finalists have chosen to solve with their entries.
The Hackaday Prize challenges Hackers, Designers, and Engineers to solve a problem and to build their solution using Open Design. One of these ten will claim the Grand Prize of a trip into space, and four others will claim top prizes worth $5,000-$10,000 each. These distinctions, along with the $100,000 Best Product prize, will be awarded to one of these ten projects at the Hackaday SuperConference in San Francisco on November 14th and 15th.
- DOLPi – RasPi Polarization Camera
- FarmBot – CNC Farming and Gardening
- Eye Controlled Wheelchair!
- Gas Sensor For Emergency Workers
- Household Electrically Enhanced Wet Scrubber
- Luka EV
- Portable environmental monitor
- Light Electric Utility Vehicle
- Vinduino, a wine grower’s water saving project
- OpenBionics Affordable Prosthetic Hands
Thank you to our expert judges who chose these finalists from a slate of 100 semifinalists. The judges will begin making final round decisions on October 26th so keep watching these finalists as they continue to develop their entires.
To all who submitted entries this year, great job! The nature of this contest means not everyone can move to the next round, but that doesn’t diminish the effort and potential for good your project represents. The full slate of entries can be found in this list and all Semifinalists are shown here. Please also check out the Best Product entries and finalists.
Congrats to all the finalists, and thanks to HaD for the second year of the Prize!
+1 I was very honored to be in the field with the top 100, one off my bucket list for the year. Pretty humbling to have many of my role models carry out the judging. The work is pretty amazing this year and an inspiration to take it further next year. Blecky’s SubPos is one I was rooting to see make it to the top, but competition was pretty tight. Thanks HAD! Congrats winners!
I too was honored to be in the top 100. Project EDEN has been a fun project to work on, unfortunately after qualifying I had to move almost 2000 miles and started experiencing major health issues. I would still like to continue on with my work once I’m back in good medical standing. As for the finalists, I congratulate you and wish you the patience to handle the demanding load that comes with the finals!
Congrats to all of the finalists, these projects are all truly outstanding.
Congrats to the top 10. It was a lot of hard work, but I did managed to get to the top 100. I feel kind of relief to not to be in that list as I am a bit burnt out.
Dito for my dead netbook, dead scope as they can’t literally handle the heat. Now I have some time to finish my projects that was on hold and try to fix my dead scope,
Really amazing projects, very well deserved! I’m not surprised that our project didn’t make it to the finals, seeing all these =) Keep up the awesome.
This list of finalists is awesome. Good luck to all of them. It’s an honor to have made it up to the semifinals alongside them!
Hack on!
Congratulations to the do-ers and not just thinkers. Yes, people should do something that matters – to them. Consider life changing things of the past. We can look at isolated groups in fairly recent time. While the rest of the industrialized world had a well established infrastructure of roads and chains of supply for fuels and internal combustion cars and trucks and trains and ships, China was in the forced Cultural Revolution, a tragic reset of culture and technology. However, out of this lessons were learned. For example a small internal combustion engine with handle bars and and an axle, the common 2 wheel tractor, became widely available and changed everything. It was used for transport (slowly) and hauling and with many attachments for farm work.
In a long winded way, I’m suggesting the Luka EV has history in its side. Though when it comes to small electric transport I am always reminded of the Segway and all the visionaries who saw a new world just barely pre-Jetsons.
Gah. I meant the Light Electric Utility Vehicle. Though the sports car looks cool.
I, too, am honored to have been chosen for the top 100. Thank you Hackaday and Judges for putting Ruprecht and me anywhere near the same ballpark of these awesome projects. And thank you fellow THP hackers for the knowledge, creativity and inspiration you’ve shared with everyone.
Congratulations, Top Ten! I drink to you tonight :-)
I hope there’s a similar prompt next year because I already started my project.
Great to see this happening
Fantastic, congratulations to the 10 finalists.
I too am honored to have made both the top 100 with one project and the top 10 with the second. Truly amazing what people are doing and what Hackaday has done to promote it. Amazing.