Eyedrivomatic Wins The 2015 Hackaday Prize

Update: We’ve published an in-depth article about The Gaze-Controlled Wheelchair that Won the Hackaday Prize.

Eyedriveomatic are the Grand Prize winners of the 2015 Hackaday Prize. The winners were just announced on stage at the Hackaday Superconference, and awarded by the prize Judges. Eyedriveomatic is a non-invasive method of adding eye-control to powered wheelchairs. Many times these wheelchairs are rented and permanent alterations cannot be made. This inexpensive and easily adaptable hardware has the power to improve life for those who need more options for controlling powered wheelchairs.

We will be publishing more information about this year’s winners in the coming week. The full standings are listed below. Please check out all of the 2015 Hackaday Prize Finalist and the Best Product Finalists.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

27 thoughts on “Eyedrivomatic Wins The 2015 Hackaday Prize

  1. Wow! Way to go, everyone enjoy that warm fuzzy feeling now that comes with bettering the world little by little.

    Considering we’re hearing about it here, I really hope the project stays Open Source the whole way through! Too often do technologies such as this get bought up and turned into cash cows to line pockets – completely losing sight of the goal of helping people.

    Congrats to the winners!

  2. Well done EyeDriveomatic!!!! Amazing!! So happy you guys won. ALS/motor neurone disease sounds like one of the scariest things that can happen too you, It takes away your independence so fast. I am sure your product will go on to make thousands of sufferer’s lifes that little more more manageable.

    Well Done everyone else!!!

  3. Tugging at heartstrings – 11 out of 10. Technical merit? 5 out of 10, maybe… but hey, we all know all you have to do is gut a commercial LED clock to get presidential-level recognition these days so heck, why not…

    1. They didn’t make this to tug on heartstrings. The people that made this all suffer from ALS/MND they hacked their way to a bit more independence. It doesn’t have too be highly technical, Infact it was designed to be anything but so non technical minded sufferer’s can build it themselves.

    2. Anything that spreads awareness of the hard working hacking community is good for us all. And I have to disagree, the winning entry actually does have a fair bit of technical merit (and was one of the ones tipped by a few to win) and fills an obvious gap that was there in the marketplace.

      There were a LOT of good entries this year, and those who got further and made a working solution have hopefully helped someone along the way. Have a crack at an entry yourself next year, you might change someone’s life.

  4. The gas sensor hack is rather clever – mostly for the mechanics/packaging. But there is a reason that this stuff is expensive. Ever look at the EU ATEX standards and directives, or the ANSI (UL) standards for HazLoc? This is serious stuff where the design must not only be robust, but meet some very rigorous electrical and environmental tests. The last project done to meet ATEX and HazLoc cost my employer over $100k USD for just the certs and reports (EMC/safety/enviromental). Any sworn first responder using this device may be subject to some serious legal problems. And a public worker using this would probably not go to jail, but risks termination for cause.

    Aside from all of those black-cloud comments, this idea has motivated me to do something similar for my personal well and tanks.

  5. Congratulations to the winners. Correct winner, wrong competition. I think Eyedriveomatic would win any competition it entered. You can not really vote against it if you watch the video. However, the brief of the hackaday prize was to build something that matters in the area of Food, Environment or Pollution. The winner has nothing to do with any of these categories. Neither does the second place (Prosthetic hands) Great projects were eliminated at earlier rounds because they had nothing to do with the 3 categories specifically outlined at https://hackaday.io/prize. Given that first & second place were given to projects for people with disabilities, I think the brief should have mentioned disabilities somewhere?
    The first & second are great projects, worthy to win competitions. I just do not see their relevance to a competition about food, energy or pollution. I am very happy eyedriveomatic won & have already congratulated Patrick, I just think the organizers need to be more clear in their brief for any future competitions.

    1. Please read the official rules:

      4. HOW TO ENTER. The purpose of the Contest is to encourage Participants to come up with a project that helps to solve a problem faced by a large number of people. Examples may include but are not limited to: providing health care, generating clean energy, conserving water, growing food, etc. Additionally, the more open source the project is, the better. See “Competition Criteria and Winner Selection” below for more details.

      1. Hi Mike,
        Thanks, this is really helpful & the results makes a lot more sense now. I did read the rules & I must admit I missed the healthcare reference completely. Pollution, Food & Energy are in big bold letters on the opening page. Health care is well hidden in the detail of the ”Official Rules”. Reading section 4 as above, the competition was actually open to anything at all so long as it solves a problem faced by a large number of people. That being the case, why did you highlight Food, Energy & Pollution on the opening page? Why you highlight 4 specific categories in rule 4 of the detail if it is open to anything? Strangely, all the finalists came from the 4 things you did highlight even though it was open to everything.

        Overall, thanks for the clarification. It is clearly my issue that I did not read the detail correctly so the fact the the winner & second were from health care makes more sense now.

        I think the competition is great & I think all the winners had great projects…..Well done to everyone!.
        Finally, a big thank you to HaD for running the competition, it is a great way to get people building & sharing.

  6. Congratulations to the winners circle. Pats on the back who didn’t get to make it to the top 5. We all worked incredibly hard. In addition to the winners, the other 5 projects are still absolutely amazing and impactful regardless of the judging outcome. I wish there were some consolation prizes like a badge or a T-shirt :)

    How did Light Electric Utility Vehicle rank without posting reproducible build instructions (item e)? Was that a loose requirement?

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