Freescale Semiconductor has just announced the Make It Challenge design contest which challenges hobbyists to develop and submit a unique sensor robot or system design based on Freescale’s latest sensor development kit in the form of a walking robot or the Freescale Tower System.
To coincide with the contest, Freescale has also introduced a new sensor development kit along with a new Tower Mechatronics Board that the contestants will have to use for the contest. The Tower Mechatronics Board lets designers write software for a variety of sensor applications – when used with the Freescale sensor robot, the Tower board is capable of making the robot walk, and respond to touch, motion, vibration and other external stimuli. The Freescale robot is a 9″ tall, with four degrees of freedom bipedal machine with a 32-bit “brain” and a three-axis accelerometer for balance.
The contest will be held next month at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) June 20-23 in San Antonio, Texas. It will be divided into two tracks (Mechanics Robot Track and Tower System Track), with the winner for each track earning $3,000, runner up $2,000 and second runner up $1,000. Joe Grand, electrical engineer and former host of Discovery Channel’s Prototype This! and president of Grand Idea Studio Inc will be one of the judges for the contest. So, all you robot-heads out there, what are you waiting for? Head over to the Freescale website for more details on the Make It Challenge.