ICRS Design Challenge Hackathon 2021 - Household of the Future

What is ICRS?

Imperial College Robotics Society (ICRS) is a student-run society at Imperial College London. We maintain a makerspace lab within the EEE building of Imperial College London, equipped with a laser cutter, 3D printers, soldering stations, and various other tools. We host many internal events, competitions and run beginner robotics courses.

The core of what we do at ICRS is to facilitate a space for people to share knowledge, design, and build whatever strikes their fancy. We specialise in projects that encompass both electronic and mechanical elements, and the projects that come out of our lab can lie anywhere on that spectrum, from static 3D printed lightsaber props to autonomous wrestling robots!

Why run a Design Challenge?

During the COVID lockdown, we were, unfortunately, unable to offer members access to our space. We wanted to run an event that would still encapsulate the core identity of encouraging and facilitating our members to create; designing and sharing their ideas.

Our fleet of printers, patiently waiting for the day they will be used again.

The Event:

Over the course of a weekend, teams of up to four got to work designing a project that would improve the quality of life at home. Avenues for the participants to explore included how to improve the sustainability of a household, how to use IoT to connect and improving the ease of use of household items, and how robotic companions or devices may look to better residents’ lives.

At the end of the hackathon, teams were judged on a variety of areas, including how well their presentation article was written, and how “cool” the overall concept was. The winning teams would receive funds to procure their bill of materials, encouraging them to turn their projects into a reality!

Winners:

Whilst all the entries were impressive and inspiring, there were two projects that stood out and won the design challenge for their creativity and technical aspect:

Socially Distanced Board Game, by Hannah Knight, Samantha Foong

A physical board game that enables people living in different households to play together as if they were in the same room. 

Bathroom Guardian, by Sherwin Da Cruz, Jia Qi Poon, Tian Yi Lim, Si Yu Tan

A system to alert trusted contacts if their vulnerable family members had been in the toilet for too long.

Summary:

Whilst everyone at ICRS has missed the hustle-bustle that is our lab space, we hoped that this event would have brought some semblance of that back to our members. With any luck, we’ll be able to be back in the lab in no time!

Thanks for reading our article, and we encourage everyone to keep making!

Churk

ICRS President 2020-2021