Past Winners
Fall 2014
BEST WEARABLE: Head Turner
Prize: $500, Special Prize for Best Crafted
Team: Jonathan Tieu, Sam Ettinger, Julia Sigal, Valerie Cohen (Penn)
HEAD TURNER uses the LilyPad Arduino to create a helmet with LED turn and brake signals. Using an accelerometer, the helmet responds to the wearers head movements to signal right and left turns, as well as breaking, in order to provide feedback to others while on the road. The team crafted the signal pad by hand, stitching and crafting the end product, which could be applied, by velcro, onto an existing helmet. Video of the prototype can be found here.
BEST HACK: Body Sense
Prize: $200, Special Prize for Best Idea
Team: Jaskirt Pooni, Digvijay Makwana, Prathik Muppidi, Bhaveya Dhall (University of Waterloo)
BODY SENSE is a wearable shirt that is used to monitor and sense any injuries that a wearer might experience while wearing the shirt. The main target audience for the project would be athletes both professional and amateur, so their coaches could help limit and avoid injuries while training. Body Sense incorporated "Stitch & Assist" because the sensors and fabric have been cleverly crafted to increase and maximize the surface area of the sensors. The other target they had in mind were people who played sports such dodge ball, paint ball or touch football because this would help them manage who had been hit. This could further help create game-like physical controllers or environments. Body Sense was also a finalist for PennApps Health
MOST UNEXPECTED: Climb Assist
Prize: $100
Team: Eduardo Garcia (Penn) & Suzanne Fluty (Utah State)
CLIMB ASSIST incorporated the theme of "Stitch & Assist" by doing an intelligent wearable wrist/armband that allows climber groups to be in contact among themselves, so they can coordinate their climbing sessions more effectively and safely. The wearable allows for reliable wireless communication between members, which aims to improve the communication via shouting to one another for group coordination. They used lights and vibration to transmit intent and messages between the climbers. They also used a motion control so the climbers can control a servo which can direct their cameras (ex. GoPro) to take awesome pictures while they climb and have their hands busy. They further incorporated the new Intel Edison board, given by Intel to PennApps X participants, and it was their first time using the board and doing a wearable. The team was made up of an artist (Suzie) and engineer (Eduardo) and they found their collaboration rewarding. Climb Assist also won the PennApps AlphaLab Gear Prize and the Intel runway hack
MOST CREATIVE: Home Base
Prize: Special Prize
Team: Jacqui De Sa, CK Ong, June Park (MIT)
The number of connected devices in our daily lives is rising rapidly. But being in physical contact with all the tools in life -- from computers, to smartphones, and even household appliances -- can be stressful and may prove troubling or impossible for those with motor disabilities. HOMEBASE challenges our touch-dominated reality through a new wearable armpiece which provides device control through simplified air gestures. Their integration with SmartThings allows touchless control of household devices without the need of running from room to room. With HomeBase, the evolution of touch is no touch at all.
SPRING 2014
BEST WEARABLE: Velo
Prize: Trip to Samsung Research Lab
Team: Uriel Eisen, Anu Jayasinghe, Sebran Warren, and Michael Probber — all from Carnegie Mellon University.
VELO turns everyone into a bike messenger by leveraging everyday travel to enable efficient transportation of goods and services. As a commuter it turns transit time into profit; as a sender you get rapid, low-cost shipping. Velo uses google calendar to compare your current location to where you're going. When it identifies a task that’s along your route, Velo alerts you via a wearable embedded device without the need to look at your phone. You then pull out your phone for details and accept the task. When you’re done, take a picture to confirm the task and collect your payment.
BEST HACK: Hackybird
Prize: IBM $2,000
Team: Katherine Obermeyer (Wellesley) and William Haack (MIT)
In a world where playing addicting games can cause us to isolate ourselves, we aspired to encourage users to move away from the screen and have a more social experience. To do this, we created a wearable version of the popular game "FlappyBird", "HackyBird" which requires a user to flap his or her arms to navigate the bird on the screen through obstacles. Our design uses two wrist bands, one with an Electric Imp and LilyPad accelerometer, and one decoy to make sure people use both arms to flap, which sense a user's "flaps" and allows them to play the game. By using this gesture to play FlappyBird, we encourage users to interact more with the people and world around them, get a little more physical activity, and of course, have fun!
BEST IDEA: HASHSTREAM
Prize: IBM $1,000
Team: Alyssa Davis and Moises Sanabria — Cooper Union
HASHSTREAM is a tool that allows the wearer to enter a hashtag and stream related content from Twitter straight to their digital badge. This badge 2.0 is a part of the IoT movement, bringing Twitter off of the device and onto the body. Unlike traditional cause pins, Hashstream allows the wearer to promote and support a conversation instead of just a slogan. The current prototype uses an Arduino, an LCD screen, and the Electric Imp platform that connects to a web application running on Node.js. In future versions, we will explore how Hashstream can support all levels of wearable content delivery, from social activism to commercial promotion.
RULES
StitchFest is part of PennApps Fall 2014 (September 12-14), the premier college hackathon hosted every semester at the University of Pennsylvania. Up to 20 teams will be able to work with the LilyPad Arduino, an electronic textile construction kit, and a set of provided components (such as a wireless module, sensors, and e-ink displays) that are ready to interface with the kit. All materials will be provided to PennApps teams. The goal is to design an electronic textile project or wearable app around a theme that will be announced