Smarter Sustainable World Challenge

The challenge

We call upon the Hackster community to create innovative solutions that reduce our ecological footprint utilizing the sensors and Bluetooth LE connectivity of our newly released Nordic Thingy:53 multi-protocol prototyping platform.

The basis for all human activity on planet earth is the natural resources we have available around us. We use these resources to produce food, clean drinking water, clothes, electrical energy, and everything else we need to survive as humans. But these resources are limited, and each and every one of us uses resources to a certain degree. The total amount of resources that you consume is what's called your ecological footprint.

Since 2015, Nordic has monitored and improved its carbon footprint, and since 2020 has committed to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals including climate action, sustainable cities, clean energy, as well as good health and well-being.

Get the Hardware

During the first phase of the contest we have given out 100x Thingy:53s. But fear not - it's still time to get hold of a Thingy:53 and create a project for the chance to win one of our many prizes. Get your hardware here.

🧑‍💻 Webinar

Get a head start on your project and watch Nordic's very first webinar on the Thingy:53 aired on July 6, 2022. This webinar covered the hardware features of the Thingy:53 and the new nRF Edge Impulse app. The app allows seamless integration with Edge Impulse Studio for developing and testing embedded ML models directly on the Thingy:53.

Click below for the recording and presentation ⏺

🚀 Nordic Thingy:53

The Thingy:53 is a battery-powered, multi-sensor IoT prototyping platform. It utilizes the nRF5340 system-on-chip, a high-performance dual-core Bluetooth LE SoC from Nordic Semiconductor. With integrated sensors for motion, sound, light, and environmental factors, it is the perfect platform for building proofs-of-concept and developing new prototypes in a very short time. It also offers embedded machine learning (ML) directly on the device, powered by Edge Impulse.

Sensors:

Temperature, Humidity, Pressure, Gas, Inertial measurement unit (IMU), Magnetometer, Low-power accelerometer, Color and light sensor

Other HMI hardware:

• PDM microphone
• Buzzer
• Buttons (one accessible through the casing, one internal)
• RGB LED

External connectors:

• USB-C for charging and programming
• Qwiic/Stemma/Groove compatible 4-pin JST for accessories
• 10-pin programmer port
• Connector for the debug and current measurement card

Check out the unboxing video from Hackster's Tech Highlight 📺

❤️ ✈️ Special treat for the grand prize winner this year

1st place winner will get to choose between a $2000 virtual gift card OR a trip to Electronica this year in München, Germany on November 15–18, 2022.

The following costs will be covered:
- Flight (economy, capped at $2000)
- Twin hotel room at Art Hotel in Munich, Nov 14-18
- Entry pass for Electronica

Get a tour of the Nordic booth - this is an exclusive industry networking opportunity!

✅ Submission tips

Developing custom hardware is not a requirement for submission. Demonstrating a prototype based on the provided hardware is sufficient.

Include a short demonstration video in your project submission and gain 10 bonus points!

💡 Need inspiration?

Examples of what adds to our resource consumption include water usage, food consumption, waste generation, energy consumption for heating/cooling your work or living spaces, travel, and all the other ways you consume goods or energy. Here are some examples of how to use technology to reduce resource consumption:

• Monitoring of environmental conditions to control heating/cooling systems using the temperature-, humidity-, and pressure sensor
• Smart watering of plants/garden using temperature/humidity/light sensors
• Gas detection in your fridge to detect vegetables going bad
• Using light sensors to automate your lights
• Accelerometer data to detect opening and closing of doors, or other activities adding to your environmental impact
• Adding Bluetooth LE communication to help you keep track by connecting your solution to a smart device or making connected solutions made up of multiple elements

The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination.

Prizes

1st Place

1 winner

Nordic surprise hardware and choose between a $2000 virtual gift card or a trip to Electronica (flight + hotel + exhibition pass + tour of Nordic booth)

2nd Place

1 winner

Nordic surprise hardware + $500 virtual gift card

3rd Place

1 winner

Nordic surprise hardware + $500 virtual gift card

Runner Ups

10 runner-up winners will receive surprise hardware and Nordic swags

10 winners

T-shirt, swag and surprise hardware

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$100 value

Judges

Bjørn Spockeli, Senior Project Manager at Nordic Semiconductor

Graduated with a M.Sc. in Engineering Cybernetics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Bjørn joined Nordic Semiconductor as an Application Engineer in 2015, helping customers in Nordics Developer community, the Nordic Developer Zone. Now working as a Senior Project Manager in the Applications group, managing projects for reference designs and prototyping platforms.

Robin M. Saltnes, Product Marketing Engineer at Nordic Semiconductor

Robin joined Nordic Semiconductor as a product marketing engineer in 2020. He holds two bachelor’s degrees from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the most relevant being in electronics and industrial instrumentation. Within Nordic Robin works with giving products the right promotion, through websites, webinars, videos, internal and external trainings, blogs and other broad marketing efforts, across short-range and cellular IoT.

Adam Benzion, Chief Expefrience Officer (CXO) at Edge Impulse

Adam is the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Edge Impulse, the Co-Founder of Hackster.io, a Microsoft alumni, a recovered hardware entrepreneur, and an investor. His expertise lies in building meaningful technological solutions, that can solve pressing challenges of our time - such as wildlife and environmental preservation, by means of using open source principles and community-building initiatives. From time to time, he enjoys writing for Fast Company, Power Magazine, TechCrunch, EE Times, and The Next Web.

Resources

About us

Nordic Semiconductor is a Norwegian fabless semiconductor company specializing in wireless communication technology that powers the Internet of Things (IoT). Nordic was established in 1983 and has more than 1000 employees across the globe. Our award-winning Bluetooth Low Energy solutions pioneered ultra-low power wireless, making us the global market leader. Our technology range was later supplemented by ANT+, Thread and Zigbee, and in 2018 we launched our low power, compact LTE-M/NB-IoT cellular IoT solutions to extend the penetration of the IoT. The Nordic portfolio was further complemented by Wi-Fi technology in 2021.