Rob Faludi said,”Engineers learn best with their hands so I thought it would be fun for them to get to know a new product by actually using it to build something. We knew two hours wasn’t much time to envision, design, build and test an entire M2M solution. They’d be pushing the boundaries, but I also knew how Digi’s engineering managers are an astonishingly talented bunch. We were not disappointed!”

Unlike “traditional” hackathons, the teams worked on the projects from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday– mostly during their own time, after all we still had a lot of work to do. Then, each team was given three minutes to pitch their project. Submissions were judged by Digi’s CTO, Joel Young.

Who won? Drum roll please…

The winning team was made up of Barbara Chryst, Ed Gordon, Barb Jordan, Mike Zarns, Brad Cole, Adam Dirstine and Liz Presson. It should be noted that due to creative differences, Don Schleede, defected from the team in order to pursue his own project.

The winning project was a system set up to detect anyone stealing food from the buffet table outside of the conference room. An infrared sensor was placed outside of the room in order to detect anyone lingering around the food table. Not only do the food thieves trigger a flashing red alarm in the conference room, but a picture of the perpetrator is taken and posted to the Twitter account @FoodThieves.

Other projects included a sensor in a coaster that measured the level of beer and temperature in a glass. The information was then tied to a web application that would tell the user the temperature as well as the amount of beer. An automatic “Mmmm beer” sounded when the temperature of a full beer was just right.

Dave Olson’s project connected a car to The Social Machine. Once a car is test driven a post is sent to Salesforce and a chatter post is created. This may useful if an automobile dealer wants to track the number of times a car has been driven or even identify trends in sales data within Salesforce.

While some fun projects came out of the hackathon, we also learned a lot by putting ourselves in your shoes. We asked ourselves: what works, what doesn’t and what can we make better?

You can also check out our XBee Project Pinboard that includes all of the projects from the XBee Project Gallery.

A Remote Controlled Robotic Arm by Easton Lachappelle

Using a pair of XBee’s and an old Nintendo Super Glove, the robotic arm converts the user’s movements into robotic motion.

Read on and watch the video 

Autonomous Vehicles by Team Wasps

Developed by a team of middle schoolers, these four vehicles drive themselves around a course avoiding collisions and navigating through a four way intersection. The team took first place in the Junior Exhibition at RoboFest 2013 World Competition.

Read on and watch the video

Magnetic Levitation Train by Antipodes

This remote controlled train uses magnets that alternate polarity to power itself along the track.

Read on and watch the video

Do you have an XBee project you would like featured in the XBee Project Gallery? You can submit your own or someone else’s project here.

Marketing and the Internet of Things from Business 2 Community

Mickey Mouse Will be part of the Internet of Things from Wall Street Journal

Behind the “Internet of Things” is Android and it’s Everywhere on Business Week

Nest Meet Glass: The Learning Thermostat Lands on your Eyes on GigaOM

Please tell us in the comments below or Tweet us, @DigiDotCom- we would love to share your findings too. You can also follow all of the commentary and discussion with the hashtag #FridayFavorites.

-Kim Cameron

In this presentation from Google I/O, Amy Unruh and Kim Cameron give an in-depth look into how data was collected from The Sensing Lab. Learn how the Google Cloud Platform team was able to collect, process, and transform all of the information collected by the Data Sensing Lab’s 500 sensor motes.

The Internet of Things is developing and buzzing all around us. Throughout the week we come across innovative projects, brilliant articles and posts that support and feature the innovators and companies that make our business possible. Here’s our list of favorites from this week’s journey on the Web.Do you have a link to share?
McKinsey: The $33 Trillion Technology Payoff on the New York Times

The Internet of Things: A Competitive Advantage in Customer Service from Business 2 Community

Every Application Under the Sun Ripe for Cloud on Forbes

Spime Watch: M2M Networks in Wired

The Internet of Things: Mote Learning from The Economist

Please tell us in the comments below or Tweet us, @DigiDotCom- we would love to share your findings too. You can also follow all of the commentary and discussion with the hashtag #FridayFavorites.

Massimo Banzi: How Arduino is open-sourcing imagination

Massimo Banzi helped invent the Arduino (along with Tom Igoe and others), a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that’s inspired thousands of people around the world to make cool things — from toys to satellite gear. Because, as he says, “You don’t need anyone’s permission to make something great.

Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web

At the 2007 EG conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what’s coming in the next 5,000 days?

Kristina Höök: Living in an Internet of Things World

Kristina Höök is a Professor in Human-Machine Interaction at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences and an employee at SICS, the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. Kristina was a founder of the Mobile Life Centre. Her research focuses on bodily and emotional interaction. She will talk about “The Internet of Things” – uniquely identifiable objects virtually represented in an Internet-like structure. www.tedxkth.com TEDxKTH – ICT as a Game Changer

Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly … and cooperate

In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams — for construction, surveying disasters and far more.

Tim Berners: Lee on the next Web

20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he’s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

Andy Stanford-Clark: Innovation Begins at Home

Dr Andy Stanford-Clark is a Distinguished Engineer and Master Inventor at IBM UK. He specializes in technologies which are helping to make the planet smarter, by analysing and reacting to data from remote sensors.

John Barrett: The Internet of Things

Dr. John Barrett is Head of Academic Studies at the Nimbus Centre for Embedded Systems Research at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and Group Director of the Centre’s Smart Systems Integration Research Group. His research is focused on packaging, miniaturisation and embedding of smart systems in materials, objects and structures.

Arlen Nipper: The Internet of Things is Just Getting Started

Arlen Nipper has been designing embedded computer hardware and software for 33 years.  Across his entire career, Arlen has been passionate about applying embedded computer technology to existing paradigm problems in the industrial controls and automation market sector.

The is just the beginning of what we hope will be a growing list of TED videos, and meaningful Internet of Things conversations. Let us know if you would like to add a video to this list in the comments section or on Twitter.

The Internet of Things is developing and buzzing all around us. Throughout the week we come across innovative projects, brilliant articles and posts that support and feature the innovators and companies that make our business possible. Here’s our list of favorites from this week’s journey on the Web.

Sensor Motes Sniff out Google I/O Data Trends on CNET

M2M and Big Data Encourage Biking From Connected World

Brilliant Design: Intelligent Lighting and Sensors in Smart Cities on The Engineer

How the Internet of Things Changes Everything in Wired

Do you have a link to share? Please tell us in the comments below or Tweet us, @DigiDotCom- we would love to share your findings too. You can also follow all of the commentary and discussion with the hashtag #FridayFavorites.

Below you’ll see attendees and Googlers alike appreciating the awe and scale of the Data Sensing Lab. You’ll also see Michael Manoochehri, Developer Programs Engineer of Google, sharing the visualizations.

You can learn about the Data Sensing Lab at Google I/O here. Other questions? Ask us anything on Twitter.

The senor network will provide more than 4,000 data streams running over Device Cloud with continuous updates on temperature, pressure, light, air quality, motion and noise levels in San Francisco’s Moscone Center during the conference. The Google Cloud Platform team will gather, transform, and analyze the information, then share heat maps and other data visualizations in collaboration with the Google Maps team.

“Google is getting a global view of their entire multi-million dollar event, as it plays out in real time. They’re learning where people are going and when, how loud the applause is for each presentation, where it’s figuratively hot and where it’s literally cool,” Rob said. “But they’re also learning how easy it is to integrate Device Cloud’s APIs with their own cloud-based business systems. Google and Digi collaborated to create a complete end-to-end solution in just a few weeks, one that’s ready to hand us 40 million fascinating data points.”

The Data Sensing Lab crew, Alasdair Allan of Babilim Light Industries, Kipp Bradford of Kippworks, Rob Faludi of Digi International, Michael Manoochehri, Amy Unruh and Kim Cameron of Google and Julie Steele of O’Reilly Media, created the project to collect data to answer questions about the physical world in a fun and awe-inspiring way.

For more information about the software involved in this project, attend the “Behind the Data Sensing Lab” session on May 16, 5:20 – 6 p.m. PDT.  You can find live updates from the conference on Digi’s Machine Talk blog, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and updates from the Data Sensing Lab team on Google+ and Twitter.

Read more about the Data Sensing Lab:

Google I/O sensors will detect motion and generate data for real-time visualization on Gigaom

At its conference, Google will be tracking your every step on Venture Beat

Data Sensing Lab at Google I/O 2013: Google Cloud Platform meets the Internet of Things on Google’s Developer Blog

The Internet of Things is developing and buzzing all around us. Throughout the week we come across innovative projects, brilliant articles and posts that support and feature the innovators and companies that make our business possible. Here’s our list of favorites from this week’s journey on the Web.

How the Internet of Things Changes Everything on Bloomberg

M2M and the Era of the App on Connected World

Sprint Digital Caddies offer M2M Solution for Golf in M2M Magazine

IoT Podcast: Where Self Milking Cows Graze Fields of Data Gold on GigaOm

Cisco Survey Hints Many IT Leaders also don’t Understand Internet of Things from ZDNet

Do you have a link to share? Please tell us in the comments below or Tweet us, @DigiDotCom- we would love to share your findings too. You can also follow all of the commentary and discussion with the hashtag #FridayFavorites.