The Power Hop Challenge

Challenges connect you with brands seeking your expertise through project requests or “bounties.” Submit a proposal quickly, as spots fill fast, and if selected, complete the project and publish it on Hackster to earn the payout. Outstanding submissions may also receive a cash bonus.

Ribbit Network, Nordic Semiconductor, and PCBWay are excited to present the "Power Hop" Design Challenge —an opportunity for developers to propose and design a self-sustaining environmental sensor ("PRO" Frog Sensor) to contribute to an open-source, global climate observation network.

Ribbit Network is a non-profit organization and community drive project that has been empowering students, teachers, makers, scientists, and corporations to become climate-change citizen scientists.

Ribbit core team of volunteers have already developed a baseline wall-powered sensor that will be used as the challenge's starting point. The current hardware design is fully documented here. This challenge want you to propose, design, and test a modification or add-on to the existing Frog sensor design with Nordic’s low-power wireless solution products. This “PRO” version of the Frog Sensor with enhanced cellular and power features will enable the sensor to be self-sustaining in any environment, whether it's urban, desert, or other rural areas. This new version of the product will enable the mission of expanding the globally distributed network and to improve the understanding of CO₂ distribution in various environments.

Design Objective:

• Allow the sensor to operate from a solar panel and battery so that the sensor can be deployed anywhere and self-sustaining
• Enable Cellular IoT capability enablement so that no local wifi or authentication is required. This is critical for deployment in areas where connecting to local wifi is a challenge (think a school's local wifi network)

Bonus points for:

• Modifying the device’s software to report its battery levels, solar panel power health, and any other interesting information you can think of!

Proposal Process:

Step 1: Start a Hackster Project. Your project is to design a custom PCBA using selected Nordic components to replace the current microcontroller and power management electronics in the Frog Sensor. Include your Bill of Materials (BOM), design narrative, power budget calculation, schematic design, and any other additional work or context you think that would make your design more compelling. **Use "unlisted" as privacy setting at this stage

Step 2: Submit your proposal on the challenge page. You'll be answering a questionnaire and including the link of your Hackster Project.

Step 3: We will select 3 top proposals to become "Contenders".

Step 4: Each contender will receive a full Ribbit Kit + nRF9151 Development Kit. All other add-on components need to be procured by you (base on your proposal).

Step 5: You should verify your design with the hardware kits, make any necessary changes and revisions to your schematic.

Step 6: Complete the PCBA layout and get a quote from PCBWay.

Step 7: Coordinate your PCBA fabrication with PCBWay. Once fabrication is complete and you receive your prototype board, you will need to do any associated re-work and testing till you have a working solution. **All fabrication costs are sponsored by PCBWay

Step 8: Fully document your implementation in your Hackster Project, and include all of the necessary user instructions in your final submission.

Step 9: Also submit your project to the Ribbit Community Hub.

Step 10: Once your solution is verified by the Ribbit team, you will receive the base award. The Ribbit team will select 1 final winner for bonus award.

Frog Sensor Technical Description:

Today, the Frog Sensor contains several components, as seen in the diagram below.

We want to leave flexibility with the sensor selection on the top (barometer, CO2, and GPS) while replacing the power supply and compute board (esp32s3 feather). You can find the technical documentation for the esp32s3 feather board we currently use here.

Required Interfaces

• Nordic’s nRF9151 SiP
• A STEMMA QT / Qwiic connection for the sensors
• A connector for the cellular antennae
• A SIM card slot
• An input for a solar panel
• An input for a battery
• A programming / optional battery charging USB C connector

Schedule

Prizes

Base Award

3 winners

$2000 Payout

Bonus Award

1 winner

$1000 Bonus + Bambu Lab A1 3D Printer for Judge's Choice

-

$1,500 value

Judges

Keenan Johnson is the founder of Ribbit Network. Keenan started his career tackling the biggest, most innovative project he could find: space exploration. He worked on satellites, space first aid, mars rovers, and rockets. He left SpaceX to found Impossible Aerospace and prove to the world that it was possible to eliminate carbon emissions from aircraft today. After Impossible, he joined the early teams at several startups including Bedrock Ocean Exploration: developing autonomous underwater vehicles to map the ocean floor, and Third Derivative, an accelerator for climate innovation. He also serves on the advisory board for several startups and non-profits.

Robb Sabolovic is a Technical Sales Engineer for Nordic Semiconductor supporting customer integration of Nordic wireless solutions into innovative low-power applications. He has a multifaceted background including roles in IC design, Systems Engineering, and Field Applications. Even now being in sales, Robb still enjoys writing firmware and creating hardware designs. Finally, in his spare time, he supports animal rescue organizations and unsuccessfully tries to herd his 4 cats at home!

Helmut Lord is a Field Application Engineer for Nordic Semiconductor where he accelerates customer development and demonstrates low-power wireless hardware + firmware. On the side, Helmut is a FOSS and Open Source Hardware enthusiast.

A hacker and maker driven by passion, Mithun Das is a 13x Hackster contest winner. His engineering journey has taken him from designing solutions for the automobile industry to creating cutting-edge software and automation tools. He loves working on projects that bring efficiency and creativity together, whether in building next-generation car buying experiences for dealers and OEMs or participating in Hackster contests.

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