15 designers will use Texas Instruments (TI) Development Boards & Kits to conceive and build wearables to promote personal safety
element14, the world’s largest electronic design community, has launched a new Design Challenge for designers and engineers called 
‘Safe and Sound’. Sponsored by Texas Instruments (TI), element14 will challenge 15 community members to design a personal safety-oriented wearable device or solution that protects a person from personal and environmental risks, monitors personal health or protects personal property from theft.
The application areas for this challenge are endless, touching on all areas of work and life, whether you are walking home by one’s self late at night or working within an industrial setting with potential personal safety risks. The goal of the element14 Safe and Sound challenge is to solve personal safety risks with wearable technology – integrating technology into a wearable device such as clothing, a wristwatch, a necklace, a pendant or an arm band.
element14 invites entries from electronic engineers, performance apparel designers and makers to conceive and build any ‘safe and sound’ wearable to steer the world close to our vision of improving personal protection.
Dianne Kibbey, Global Head of Content and Community, element14 said: “The members of the element14 Community always surprise and delight us with their response to our Design Challenges. The wearables market is an area that demands innovation and creativity, and we are confident that our members can rise to the challenge and put their skills to work to highlight and address key challenges faced by employers and employees as they stay safe at work or at home.”
element14 will accept applications for the Safe and Sound challenge from now until January 27, 2017. Fifteen official challengers will be announced on February 13, 2017. Challengers are required to integrate TI’s low-power and high-performance MSP432™ microcontroller (MCU), via the MSP432 LaunchPad™ development kit, as the main application MCU in to their design, but are also encouraged to incorporate additional components from the official Design Challenge Kit provided by element14. For full product details review the kit list at www.element14.com/safeandsound. Each of the 15 challengers will provide weekly updates on their progress through blog posts, photos and videos via the element14 Community.
Punya Prakash, product line manager, MSP microcontrollers, TI, said: ““Technology is our passion. We are constantly working to redefine what’s possible and create opportunities for TI technology to improve people’s lives in every region of the world. In this challenge, we are eager to see the element14 community help enable a safer environment through innovation and creativity. We are excited to see what community members can come up with – and look forward to helping engineers use the latest technology from TI .”
Finalists will have until May 12th, 2017 to submit their projects. Entries will be judged on originality, innovation and technical merit by a panel of judges including experts from TI and the wearables sector. The winners will be announced by the end of May 2017.
The grand prize winner will receive a DJI Phantom 4 quadcopter worth $1600 and the runner up will receive a DJI Phantom 3 Professional Quadcopter worth $800. All other completed projects published on element14 will receive an RF Sports Watch with USB Data Logger and 96 Segment LCD Display.
To learn more about the ‘Safe and Sound’ design challenge and to submit an entry, visit http://www.element14.com/safeandsound
