Winners! 20 Arduino-Certified Intel Galileo Boards! What Will You Make?

Have a great idea for your own DIY electronics project and want to learn or improve your coding skills? The popular Arduino hardware platform allows anyone to build fantastic interactive projects. And now you have more power to play with thanks to Arduino and chip giant Intel collaborating on the Galileo board: now available in Australia. Gizmodo has 20 to give away, worth almost $100 each! Entering is easy — just tell us what you’d make!

And The 20x Winners Are…

In no particular order:

@palms

I’m currently studying robotics and I’ve always wanted to build one of the little messenger robots that is always travelling around the Death Star in Star Wars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqNmMH4hsg). I would use it to deliver messages around the lab at uni, and as a test bed for developing perception, localisation, and path planning algorithms. The Arduino Galileo looks to have plenty of power for this purpose.

@themickfom

I’ve just started studying Mechatronics at Uni so i can think of about a million projects i would want to use this for. As i am new to programming and just want to have a bit of fun with it, first thing i want to do will be to ‘hack’ the remote control robot arm kit I have, to give me full control over it instead of the limited motions with the current remote.

@marc_carc

I would use the Galileo to control the arm of a strength augmenting robotic exoskeleton. I have developed an exoskeleton arm as part of a university project. Currently I am using an arduino for taking measurements from various sensors (accelerometer, encoders, etc) but its limited processing power makes it too slow. The Galileo would be a perfect replacement as it needs to be small, portable, low power yet powerfull. It would require quite a lot of programming to re-implement the existing control system, but it would be a great learning experience!

@lgharland

I am a science teacher who also helps with a science and maths after school program. I am wanting to use a computer like an arduino or rapsberry pi to extend some of my junior boys in the class. I have a few students who have literacy troubles with writing but they love IT and use their computers all the time. I want to encourage them to get into learning how to code to give them something in which they can excel at school.

@patrickk

I am part of a four person team aiming to build an autonomous underwater vehicle as our engineering honours project at the University of Adelaide. Our goal is to build the platform for Australia’s first entrant into the global RoboSub competition in San Diego, California.

We have identified the Galileo working in concert with Matlab as a vital component. It will be used to control all thrusters on the device and also read inputs from a range of sensors, including gyroscopes, pressure sensors and accelerometers. The additional computational power of the Galileo board compared to other arduino based microprocessors will allow us to run more complicated logic algorithms in real time, hence increasing our chances of success.

@Peter P

Given the opportunity I would most definitely use the Galileo for building an autonomous ATV. Recently I have been in development, along with a team, of an autonomous ATV made out of an old electric wheelchair. Currently it is being controlled with an Arduino UNO linked to a laptop which does the image processing for the computer vision. Ideally we will be able to use an all in one board to control the ATV and do image processing. The Intel chip on the GALILEO seem to be powerful enough for at least basic image processing.

Note: we are university students doing this project in our own time and with our own money.

@felixyim

I would make a automatic curtain closing machine. This is so I can sleep at night with an open curtain, but in the morning, it would close when it detects sunlight (i would hook up a solar panel to it) ! Woohh, no more nights where i must sacrifice sleep for a chilling breeze 🙂

@bigmac

I would make a home bushfire protection system. The system could be activated one of three ways; an IR sensor, over the internet, or through a push button at the base unit. Upon activation, the arduino would start three main functions:

1. Close the roller shutters on the house, to prevent fire penetration through the windows.

2. Start a water pump connected to a water tank, which would feed water to a set of sprinklers on the top and sides of the roof (to both wet the roof and create a mist shield, both to reduce the risk of ember attack.

3. Close a small valve on the downpipe of the gutter. This would block the gutter, allowing it to fill with water and reduce the risk of ember strike through the eaves of the roof.

Each of the functions that this achieves are recommended to do when bushfires are nearby.

@struct

I am in the middle of making/designing two things:

1) An actual control panel for Rackspace hosting using their API, so you can literally dial up servers with a dial.

2) A Radiation Orchestra, creating music from radioactive elements using Arduino-compatible geiger counters.

@phgbl

I am currently building a connected walking frame for the elderly (the ones with 4 wheels). I’m a physio and I’m writing a computer vision algorithm to track walking quality for falls risk prediction to make it easier to identify residents of nursing homes whose walking quality is deteriorating. So far I have been prototyping with a Raspberry Pi but I would be interested in trying out a Galileo

@bugsquash

My 10 YO daughter has cystic fibrosis and getting her to do her Positive Expiratory Pressure (PEP) physiotherapy is a nightmare. This is a big problem for all kids that CF, it is boring… My idea is to use the Arduino to interface and control between a series of air flow meters and resistors and a fun game displayed on a wireless device so that CF kids are engaged while improving their health.

The right combo could have massive impacts on CF kids willingness to do their therapies and therefore increase their health and wellbeing and ultimately their lifespan before they need lung transplants.

I have a physiotherapy student at the local uni who has the tablet/phone application ready to go and a colleague who is an industrial designer who has volunteered to assist with the air flow devices and combined with my skills in electronics and makengineering we just need a smart device to run the show 🙂

I dont want any more of my daughters friends, or my daughter, to die waiting for transplants. Anything I can do to prevent that I will do.

@justme

I am currently working on a small solar powered water-droid that has sensors in it to work in dams and waterways to ensure and manage the quality of water and detect pollution in real time. Water quality is highly important to 3rd world countries and our farmers who are in drought, and water quality deteriorate rather rapidly without obvious signs, as the volume decreases. This will mean that an entire dam or waterway can be monitored via a wifi and/or 3G connection and if the quality threshold change it will send a message or publish to a website. Also if pollutants enter a waterway they will be detected, and may also be able to identify the source through the collection of data.

I am hoping my water droid will will function up to 3 months or longer without needing to be removed. So it is not sexy or exciting but it will keep people on farms or in 3rd world countries safe from water borne disease and sickness, with a better board I hope to make it a little faster an more robust – and maybe add more sensing. Currently I need to have it tethered, but with this new board I might be able to motorise it and have it cover a GPS plotted area and report back, as in stagnate waters, without current, you can have pockets of different water quality in the one pool. It will be a huge step in performance – but tapping into the community will also be a huge aid. Like I said not sexy.

@Oliver Perkins

Holy cr@p!!! noice.
Well I’ve just started designing an underwater ROV, using a basic arduino board, but one of these would give me way more functionality!!!

@cheekybobo

I currently in the process of designing a valve amplifier for my home theatre. With the Galileo, I could implement additional features such as docking my tablet/smart phone, bluetooth streaming and connecting over my wifi network. This would all be done by using the Galileo to process all the audio and send it to the amplifier. Also it would allow me to to add sensors to the circuitry and monitor input & output in real time. Would be great to see how far we can push the Galileo. Looking forward to reading other Gizmondians’ ideas.

@fortalyst

I would take my homebrewing to the next level & use arduino to script the entire process – from grain selection to heating & controlling the temperature of the mash, to adding the right amount of sparge water for maximum efficiency & cooling it all down so that all i need to do is add yeast and put my fermenter away to have a consistent & delicious beer! Once the process is perfected I could step it up & start selling my own beer… *happy sighs*

@nightflyer00

Crazy Christmas Lights! I’d like to put together a low voltage (5-12v) Christmas light controller that uses RGB LED modules and ribbons. I currently use a commercial light-o-rama setup but that’s putting out 240v to each channel and lets face it; some of these led strings you get these days don’t have the best insulation. You would be providing me with an invaluable learning tool and saving me from possible electrocution.

@Ari Chakrabarti

I have a vision, a dream, to make a life size statue that embodies the intersection of art and engineering inspired by Arthur C Clarke’s 3rd Law “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. The statue is to be a piece of functional art, designed to stand in a home, but with the secondary function of surveillance- tracking movement in a room and moving it’s head and eye’s to that point in 3D space autonomously (and in surveillance mode, it will record video).

Being a mechanical engineer, I’ve designed most of the mechanisms and form factor in CAD already, and I’m learning Java & Python to realise my vision from a programming perspective. The Galileo board would be an ideal platform!

@dnr

I was trying to find something to do with my LEAP motion, and my remote controlled Lamborghini, was thinking about getting one and looking at creating a motion controlled car 😀

Something similair to this, http://www.jbprojects.net/projects/wifirobot/ but with the added LEAP controlled form my PC 😀

@inquisitorsz

I would really love to put some more time and effort into my full body monitoring and display tech. Basically a variety of sensors such as, pulse, sweat, temperature, maybe brainwaves, GPS, pedometers etc. This could completely track you vital signs 24/7. Potential integration with a heads up display but initially to an app.

Also would allow for deeper integration with VR and AR tech like the Occulus Rift and full body tracking.

@jonogm

I’m having issues with my crappy ancient garage door remote. The range is pathetic and the buttons are worn and hard to activiate.
I think I’d start by connecting this board to an RF transmitter to open/close the door.

Then I’d install Zoneminder on the Galileo board and see if it can trigger on image detection or number plate recognition of a car returning home.

CONGRATULATIONS!

It’s all about getting involved. Learning by doing. This is where you and your friends; your university or your school become the maker. The ‘Maker Movement’ is all about using tech to bring your DIY ideas to life: from music projects and art installations to robots and apps. Then there’s the group of makers and hackers creating prosthetic limbs for bomb victims in Sudan.

Back at the big Consumer Electronics Show in January, Intel fired up the Maker community with its ‘Make It Wearable’ Challenge. Aussies are eligible to submit game-changing wearable sensor ideas to potentially receive US$500,000 funding and mentoring to get it off the ground…

Gizmodo wants to get you started: So we’re launching this, our own Galileo competition to get your creative juices flowing! We’re giving away 20 Galileo boards to the best 20 responses to the question:

“What Will You Make And Why?”

We want to know what your inspiration is!
Let us know in the comments section below (make sure your email is valid so we can contact you!).

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

Next steps: We also recommend you submit your project to the Arduino blog and check out the resources within Intel’s Maker Community. We’d also love to feature the winners on Gizmodo when your build is ready! Bragging rights FTW.

Getting Started

Like any Arduino, the Galileo is built for open development and supports the C-like Arduino programming language. But don’t let that concern you, see: Quark system on chip — currently including a 400 MHz processor based on the x86 Pentium Instruction Set Architecture. The Galileo comes with USB, Ethernet, microSD, and a mini-PCI Express slot.


[clear]

Inspiring Galileo Examples

You seriously have to check out some of the amazing creations people have come up with using Galileo. One of our favourites is the QuadCopter in the video to the right. Other cool projects include Manoel Ramon’s clever and inexpensive system to monitor soil, using only nails.

What sensors will you connect to the Galileo?
What will you make?

[clear]

To develop apps for/with Galileo: Use the Arduino IDE software to create programs for Galileo called “sketches.” To run a sketch on the board, simply connect a power supply, connect Galileo’s USB Client port to your computer, and upload the sketch using the IDE interface. More detailed info here.

Good luck!

We’re Looking forward to hearing your ideas!


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