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Submit your winning BASIC Stamp, SX, or Propeller microcontroller projects and pictures to our Parallax Education Team. If your school project was a recent winner in a formal competition, it is eligible to be featured here!
Nickos Giannakopoulos - Smart Photovoltaics
Microcontrollers are small autonomous computing systems, programmed to perform specific commands and programs, which have been registered in their pre-programmed memory. As every calculating circuit, they contain units I/O, a central processing unit, a number of registers and circuits of memory. Each microcontroller is capable of exchanging signals with its exterior environment, performing calculations and producing control signals for other devices. The object of study of this project is the Basic Stamp microcontroller of Parallax Company programmed with Pbasic and in its educational application in a school activity regarding the saving of energy through the construction of a solar tracking PV. The particular educational applications that were realised combine courses of information technology such as programming and algorithms, with courses of physics that concern materialization of resistance-capacitor circuits (RC circuits) and solar radiation measurement.
The project won the FORTH/ICE-HT 3rd award for Lyceum-Technical Vocational Schools' Students in the school competition 2008, which was organised by the Institute of Chemical Engineering and High Temperature Chemical Processes, on the 12/04/2008 in Patras. At the duration of this project we have materialized also some interesting experiments about solar radiation measurement.
Resources:
Smart Photovoltaic using Bs2 of Parallax
Smart photovoltaic - student's experiment
Video of Project - You Tube
Toni Abney's Solar-Powered RFID Gate Control
 American River College student Toni Abney took first place in the 2008 California State Fair Closed Caption Award with her Solar-Powered RFID Gate Control. Toni's project was a well-built working model of a closed-loop security system. The visitor uses an RFID keytag to activate the gate. A magnet and reed switch are used to detect the fully open position. The whole project is powered by a 6V solar cell and a charge circuit.
Instructor Fred Evangelisti and student Toni Abney.
Jordan Krell's Smart Swim
 Each year over 750 accidental, non-boating drowning fatalities and over 4,000 near-drowning accidents occur among children younger than 15 in the United States. These tragedies occur in our backyards; some may be avoided through the use of a new device I have created called the Smart Swim.
The Smart Swim consists of a small radio frequency transmitter worn on the body which constantly sends an “all safe” signal to a receiver located outside the pool. The receiver sounds an alarm after not receiving a signal for an adjustable period of time as a result of the transmitter module being underwater.
 The Smart Swim utilizes a Parallax BS2 Stamp microcontroller which was programmed using a BOE Development board. I chose to use Parallax Stamp products because of their ease of use, flexibility for various design platforms, power for running applications, and for the great technical support that is provided by the Parallax tech support team. I built my own circuit boards and incorporated the BS2 into them via IC sockets. This allowed for me to utilize the power of the BS2 in my platform.
Awards: 4th Award in Engineering at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Grand Award, Trail King Best Project Award and four other special awards at the South Central South Dakota Science & Engineering Fair.
Click the image to the right for a larger view.
 Jordan Krell's Smart Seat
Jordan Krell, a student at Plankinton High School in San Diego, CA. has won numerous awards for his Smart Seat invention.
The Smart Seat is a standard child’s car seat modified to keep a child safe in the family vehicle at all times. It accomplishes this by sounding an alarm when the ignition is off and a child is in the seat for a set period of time. An alarm will also sound if a child is unbuckled while the ignition is on. The Smart Seat utilizes various sensors from Parallax such as the Parallax Super Carrier Board and Parallax BS2 Microcontroller.
The Smart Seat was recently displayed at the South Central South Dakota Science and Engineering Fair and at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
The Smart Seat has also won numerous awards including the American Psychology Association Outstanding Research in Psychology Award, Avon Science Club Excellence and Enthusiasm in Science Award, Herbert Hoover Young Engineer Award, Outstanding Overall Engineering Project Award, Daily Republic Newspaper Best Researched and Written Project Award, Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award, Outstanding Computer Science Award, National Society of Professional Engineers Innovative Engineering Award, South Dakota Army National Guard Outstanding Engineering Project Award, Trail King Scholarship, United States Air Force Outstanding Engineering Project Award, United States Dept. of the Army Outstanding Engineering Project Award, and Grand Award.
Toni Abney - California State Fair Winner, 2006
Parallax would like to extend special congratulations to Toni Abney, a student at American River College in Sacramento, CA. Toni's Propeller-controlled "Morse Code Training Device," was designed to help people with learning disabilities learn Morse Code. For her efforts Toni was awarded First Place, Best of Show, Outstanding Achievement, and an ADA Award in the Industrial and Technology Education Competition. The "Morse Code Training Device" operates through a keyboard attached to a standard TV set and features the Parallax Propeller chip.
Submitted by ARC Professor Fred Evangelisti
  
American River College Staff Wins “Best Program” Award from CCAOE
 California Community College Association for Occupational Education awarded American River College (ARC) Electronics Program with the “Best Program” award at their Spring 2005 meeting in Sacramento. The award was received by James Brown, Gary George, Fred Evangelisti (all of ARC) and Ken Gracey of Parallax. The ARC team insisted on Parallax being part of their award team, as they believe the BASIC Stamp has been an integral part of their success in retaining, motivating and placing students in technical employment.
Program director Fred Evangelisti says “Parallax makes teaching a lot of fun and their hardware really turns on the students. Without their Stamps in Class program we’d be having a real difficult time”.
The same weekend the Sacramento Bee newspaper ran a story on occupational education featuring Fred Evangelisti.
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