Open Competition #1

// Sector: FURNITURE //

Furniture to play
Challenge description: Add a slide to your kid’s bed and make their room a whole new experience.
The challenge is to incorporate design and functionalities to kids/ youth furniture to support their cognitive development and help with their emotional intelligence. Propose creative ideas and participate in adding functionalities and design to kids/ youth furniture to make it multi-functional and playful, which will facilitate experimentation and support cognitive development, among other benefits.

// Sector: MEDICAL// 

Design and develop an antistress toy
Challenge description: working from home may bring new challenges to the work-life balance, and ultimately cause moments of stress.
The challenge is to design and develop an antistress toy in order to boost the mental health of remote workers or students. In this challenge, makers can use their 3D printers.

Protective gear or gadgets for travel during the pandemic
Challenge description: as flights are increasingly resuming, an increasing amount of people are expected to travel for leisure or professional reasons.
The challenge is to design and develop protective gear or gadgets that can be safely used for travelling during the ongoing pandemic.

// Sector: MOBILITY //

DIY and eco-friendly Urban Mobility Device
Challenge description: A frugal, recycled & easy to manufacture urban mobility solution.
The challenge is to design a mobility solution for the urban environment that allows the daily travel of one or more people. This solution will have to take into account specific criteria:

• To allow the daily displacement on distances of approximately 15kms.
• The manufacturing will have to be able to be carried out in a fab lab (MIT charter) and to integrate recycled products sourced locally.
• The manufacturing cost should not exceed 500€.

Plug and Play renewable energy bike production and storage
Challenge description: Create a system of production and storage of renewable energy adapted to any bicycle.
The challenge is to design a solution that generates and stores electrical energy on conventional bicycles. The system will allow the use of both human effort or renewable energies to recharge a battery that will provide electricity to charge a device, power the lights of the bike or add options to the bike (e.g., turn signals). The system has to be plug and play and adaptable to all conventional bikes.

// Sector: MECHATRONICS //

Remote Smart Watering system
Challenge description: Remotely water and control your plants while you’re away from home.
The challenge is to design a case for the IoT sensors/actuators that must be inserted into the plant pots to collect data about humidity and temperature, to transmit data to a supervision station and to actuate central commands. The case must be functionally and aesthetically suitable for selling to hobby shops/mass retail channels. Propose creative ideas to make the watering system a design object useful and decorative for your home.

Vintage Ventilation System for your house
Challenge description: Make it feel like you're living a comfortable and hot summer all year round.
The challenge is to design a ventilation system (a sort of large fan) for top class houses that must combine effectiveness with design. The fan is connected to a robotic shaker that moves it linearly. The case must be functionally and aesthetically suitable for selling to hobby shops/mass retail channels. Propose creative ideas to make the ventilation fan system a design object useful and decorative for your home.

// Sector: MULTISECTOR //

Product conformity tool (PROOF)
Challenge description: start-ups need help to bring their product to market. One of the most overlooked problems they face is identifying which certificates and conformity declarations are required to bring their products to the market. That is why we dream of a “product conformity tool (PROOF)”.
The challenge is to conceptualise a tool that would allow start-ups to find all required certificates (e.g., RED (radio emissions directive), GPSD (General Product Safety Directive), and packaging and waste regulations) that are relevant to their product and market for a low cost and to get connected to a database of test facilities available at low cost that provide certifications.

Digitalising training for fablabs and users
Challenge description: many of the existing training kits resort to traditional means, such as videos, and often aren’t creative or efficient at passing their messages.
The challenge is to conceptualise a new and creative way of delivering training and tutorials to fablabs and other users, making use of existing or new tools, techniques and/ or approaches.

The competition is open to any legal entity (or natural persons) or group of legal entities (up to three entities per submission) established in EU Member States or Associated countries to Horizon 2020. Natural persons must be at least 18 years old.

Submissions from all sources, sectors and all types of organisations (including for-profit, not-for-profit, or private companies) are welcome. Submissions that involve several organisations (up to three) and/or from various eligible countries are possible.

Prizes will be awarded to the top (three) 3 ranked entries that best address the competitions' evaluation criteria for their idea: concept, impact, link to iPRODUCE, and motivation.

Each winner will receive €1.500 to be used for costs specific to the implementation of their submitted idea/ solution and 10 hours of mentoring and support.

These include travel arrangements and acquisition of materials to develop the idea/ solution. Specific conditions apply, please consult the Guidelines and Rules. 

All entries will evaluated along two phases:

Phase 1 - Eligibility check: All entries submitted will be checked against contestant and entry criteria.

Phase 2 - Internal evaluation: Entries that are marked eligible will be evaluated by the iPRODUCE project. The evaluation will be done remotely with each entry being evaluated by at least two (2) evaluators, with at least one (1) evaluator with knowledge in the challenge and sector the entry addresses. The entries will be evaluated against four (4) criterion: concept, impact, link to iPRODUCE, and motivation. The criterion have a defined weight and a minimum threshold. Entries will be scored between 0 and 10 points. All entries will be ranked according to the overall weighted average score. Tie-breaking will follow defined rules

The delivery of the prize, particularly the support activities, will be done along different stages and over the course of several months, adjusted to the specificities of each awarded entry.

The delivery of the prize will follow several stages (S):

• S1. Online kick-off meeting with all winners and iPRODUCE
  Objective: present objectives of the competition and awards; discuss submitted ideas; Q&A with mentors; define specific steps for each awardee.

• S2. Individual online meeting 1
  Objective: Discuss in detail ideas; review progress and challenges; plan F2F work (including travel arrangements).

• S3. F2F meeting
  Objective: Meeting at pilot location to collaboratively work on the idea; participation of other stakeholders as necessary; review progress and challenges; plan follow up online meeting.

• S4. Individual online meeting 2
  Objective: Discuss activities and results of the F2F meeting; review progress and challenges; plan commercialisation opportunities and future steps.

• S5. Competition wrap up with all winners and iPRODUCE
  Objective: Discussion of key outputs; commercialisation results; future steps.

All winners must sign and return the Prize Acceptance Agreement. The monetary component will only be made available after participation in Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Submit your entry to the competition (via F6S): https://www.f6s.com/iproduce-open-competition-1

Note: Registration on F6S is required.

To complete a submission, all mandatory form items must be completed and Annex 2 - Technical submission must be uploaded.

Competition documentation:

• Annex 1 - Competition guidelines and rules (Download)
• Annex 2 - Technical submission (Download)
• Annex 3 - Prize acceptance agreement (for reference only) (Download)

Download the competition flyer here.