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element14 Pty Ltd announces Barbara Eldredge from the U.S. as the winner
of the ‘Hats Off’ wearable design challenge.
Eldredge’s motion sensing, multi-coloured ‘Jaunty Fascinator’ was
named the winner of element14 Community and Adafruit Industries’ ‘Hats
Off’ design competition, which challenged 10 participants from around the
world to reimagine the traditional hat into new wearable technology solutions.
Eldredge won the top prize of an Oculus Rift and the complete FLORA
Collection parts pack from Adafruit for her design. Eldredge equipped a
traditional English fascinator headpiece with an accelerometer to measure the
wearer’s movement. Data collected by embedded sensors prompts NeoPixels within
the hat to change colour intensity and colour temperature from blue to green,
yellow, orange and red.
Congratulating Barbara and all the Hats Off participants on their work, Dianne
Kibbey, Global Head of Community, element14 observed that the designs demonstrated
how wearable technology was more seamlessly balancing form with function as it
moved toward the mainstream.
Competitors were judged based on their creativity, quality of
documentation and the execution of their project. David Crittenden received an
honourable mention for his ‘Coachman’s Navigational Top Hat,’ which
transformed a traditional top hat into an LED compass using an accelerometer,
magnetometer and NeoPixel ring. Todd Cowley also received an honourable mention
for his ‘Iron Man Helmet’ complete with glowing blue eyes.
All participants received the Adafruit GEMMA, a tiny Arduino-compatible
sew-able microcontroller capable of lighting up LEDs when triggered by simple
sensors and actions, in addition to sensors, batteries, clips and switches
courtesy of element14 to support the design process.