#ThalesArduino - halfway to the finish line!
With five countries having announced their country winning team, the global Project Arduino competition is now at the halfway stage. The five remaining countries are gearing up to meet the students taking part in the biggest Project Arduino competition to date!
Over the past couple of months, Arduino workshops have been delivered at 31 universities in Singapore, China Mainland & Hong Kong, Portugal, Canada, the Netherlands and the US. Next to deliver the workshops will be the UK, Australia and Abu Dhabi, making a total of 60 participating universities and over 1000 student registrations. In France, a social media campaign also helped reach over 140 universities.
The 10 country winners will be chosen by April this year, with the winning teams moving forward and going head to head in the final stage, the public vote, where the top three finalists will be identified. A special Thales jury will then select the final Global winner, which will be announced in May.
Project Arduino was first created in 2013 and has only grown since then. Now a global campaign, it is a tool that raises brand awareness and engagement, drives strong and lasting relationships with key universities and prepares the talent pipeline. The competition combines live events, awards ceremonies, a digital platform and social media to promote Thales worldwide.
Girls on the Move
New this year is the "Girls on the Move" sponsorship of Project Arduino. The international network of the “Elles Bougent” initiative, Girls on the Move empowers and promotes women in the fields of engineering, technology and sciences. For this year’s competition, Girls on the Move will award a special prize to one of the 10 country finalist teams that is at least 50% female (or at least one female for teams of three).
For the lucky Global winners, the prize is a trip to a Thales Research Centre or Innovation Hub in one of the participating countries! Last year’s winners, Team Droneshell from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the US, visited our Research Centre in Palaiseau, our ATM showroom in Rungis and Le Bourget airshow during a four-day trip to Paris.
“The Arduino Challenge is a unique and brilliant way to get students excited about building new technology,” said Jeremiah Lantzer, a member of Team Droneshell. “For me, it has grown my knowledge as a developer and has made me truly appreciate what Thales is trying to achieve as a global leader in innovation."
More on Project Arduino:
Project Arduino offers students the chance to learn more about Thales and our markets, learn new skills, meet new people and work in diverse teams, as well as win some exciting prizes! Students are taught how to use and programme an Arduino by our Thales engineers during workshop sessions held at participating universities.
In teams of four, students are given three weeks to see how creative they can be under time constraints. They are challenged to create an innovative project that is aligned with Thales’s markets using the Arduino platform, as well as produce a video that showcases their idea.
Follow us on social media and stay updated by using #ThalesArduino!