The Arduino Cloud Games was first hinted at just after Christmas, 2021. That’s how long these amazing members of the Arduino community have been toiling on some genuinely incredible projects.
The top three were just announced live on the community day at Arduino Week 2022, so we thought we’d give you a closer look at what they built. Firstly though, even if it’s something of a cliche, we’ve got to say that picking them was insanely difficult. The quality, imagination and skills we’ve seen throughout the Arduino Cloud Games has been staggering. Seriously, there are very few people who work at Arduino that could build such amazing things.
So if you didn’t make it into the top three, despair not! You were up against some of the toughest creative competition in the maker world. You all blew our minds with every new project that arrived on Project Hub, so you should be incredibly proud that you made it into the finals. Keep on building!
Quick Recap of the Arduino Cloud Games
The objective was fairly broad. Initially people were asked just to pitch an idea for a Cloud-connected project. Of the hundreds of pitches we received, 100 were chosen to receive a free Oplà IoT Kit to be used in the build.
We’ve had a couple of great months over on the Arduino Discord server chatting about the projects as the participants got to work. It’s been one of those wonderful examples of what the Arduino community is all about. Some wonderful collaboration, makers helping makers, and a showcase of talent that’s such high quality it’s hard to believe.
So, chosen with a great deal of difficulty, here are the top three Arduino Cloud Games projects!
BRONZE: Oplà Spotify Controller
Altug put together a project that, on face value, is quite simple. But this is a swan; gliding gracefully on the surface, while furiously kicking below the water to drive everything forward against a strong current!
With some devilishly cunning workarounds, he was able to connect his Oplà IoT Kit to the Spotify API. From there he turned the screen and capacitive buttons into a music controller, while displaying extra info in an Arduino Cloud dashboard.
The Spotify Controller was chosen for third place as it’s almost like two projects in one. A web server, and an API controller. It expands control of a closed system (in this case Spotify) to offer a very neat solution that anyone can build for themselves. We also found it particularly inspiring, as seeing an Arduino device controlling a service like Spotify makes you realize just how much an Arduino project is capable of. And that’s worth the $250 Arduino Store voucher, for sure.
If you can control Spotify, you can control anything!
SILVER: Smart Fitting Room
Problem solving and finding solutions are two different things. As Henry Ford said, “If I’d have asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” That’s never been more clear since we saw momentumhw’s Arduino Cloud Games project.
His system places an Oplà inside each cubicle of a clothes store changing room. As well as having a couple of environmental controls on there, the primary focus was on customer assistance.
People in the changing rooms can call for assistance without needing to leave the cubicle. Furthermore, the Arduino Cloud dashboard gives the store owner (or whoever’s manning the changing rooms) a detailed control and monitoring station to keep an eye on things.
Such an inspired way to give an Arduino project a commercial application, which it earned the $500 store voucher. Not only that, but it also shows small business owners how they could improve their customer experience in simple, ingenious, inexpensive ways.
GOLD: Bakerino
Which brings us to the top award. Nestaflavio built a project at the request of his girlfriend, who has a particular passion for baking bread and pastries. The difficulty she faces is the ambient weather conditions in their locale. Primarily, it’s very dry, and the lack of humidity prevented dough from rising properly.
So this project became a leavening chamber, which allows you to control the temperature and humidity while the dough is rising. With the Oplà taking care of the sensor monitoring and environment control, it also provided a display and buttons for adjustments. Coupled with remote monitoring and controls from an Arduino Cloud dashboard, this project solved the issue with grace and ingenuity.
We felt it was the quintessential Arduino project. Not a replacement or DIY version of a commercial product, but a clever and functional solution to a genuine need. Something that people both inside and outside of the maker community would want, and could replicate for themselves. So please join us in congratulating nestaflavio for landing the $1,000 store voucher, and the gold award!
Do go and visit Project Hub to check out the rest of the Arduino Cloud Games projects, all of which were of incredible quality. Which one are you going to make first?
Website: LINK
