Project Arduino has it’s winner!

After weeks of voting and thousands of people viewing the finalists' videos, Project Arduino has it’s winner!

Lockduino, the brainchild of the University of Exeter team, was been named overall winner of the second annual Project Arduino competition, having received 608 out of the total 1425 votes.

Despite some fierce competition from universities on both sides of the Atlantic, Lockduino – a concept based on a smart door-locking system – has been the standout favourite throughout the voting process.

Thales Project Arduino consists of a series of on-campus workshops and this year, we visited 19 universities across the UK and the US. The project challenges teams of students to devise and build innovative technology using an Arduino computer board, creating something that could one day be used by Thales.

Workshops at the universities were run by current engineering graduates, who took the time to work with the attendees and help coordinate the challenge. John Littlewood, Graduate Software Engineer from Thales’s Templecombe office told the GradMail team about the workshop he ran with the University of Exeter: “Being involved with Project Arduino was a really rewarding experience. I was able to learn about Arduino programming myself, and then share that knowledge with the impressively enthusiastic students, so it's helped me technically and professionally, plus, I got to work with the team that won the whole competition. Congratulations Team Lockduino!”

Following a tough selection process, the four finalists’ video entries were hosted on the Thales Arduino website where the general public has been voting for its favourite project.

As part of Thales’s new award-winning employer brand, Project Arduino is a core element of our on-campus engagement with engineering students. Thales is committed to developing the next generation of engineers and ensuring a robust talent pipeline is maintained in the UK. Engaging young engineers while they are still at university is central to this process.

Speaking of the success of this year’s Project Arduino, Gemma Minish, Campus Marketing Manager, Emerging Talent says:

I am proud that we have had such a great response to this year’s competition. As always, every university we have spoken to are keen to give every opportunity to their students to get involved with our competitions. The quality of the entrants from every university has been outstanding, but Lockduino was standout this year. Congratulations to the team! I suspect we will see more of this talented group in the future!