The final phase of the European edition of the 13th International Student Competition "Digilent Design Contest" was held on May 13-14 2017, at National Instruments Romania office, in Cluj-Napoca. The competition is organized jointly by the companies Digilent Inc. (Pullman, WA, USA), Digilent RO (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Department of Applied Electronics.
The competition aims to encourage creativity, originality and common sense to students, their mobilization in the implementation of projects of high complexity. Students enrolled receive free hardware platforms (FPGA systems) and develop their own projects, to present in the final stage (oral, practical demonstration and documentation).
25 teams represented universities in Romania (Cluj, Brasov, Timisoara, Targu Mures, Bucharest, Constanta) and abroad (Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Serbia).
The jury was composed of representatives of the organizing companies, teachers from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, industry members:
John Yates – Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
Ionut Catuna - Digilent Ro, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Zoltan Baruch - Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Gabriel Chindris – Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Marius Muresan – MXT Creation, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Mihai Bancisor – Analog Devices, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Most projects have shown a high degree of complexity, demonstrated imagination, knowledge and communication skills of the authors. Juries have had a difficult task in ranking the best projects:
First Prize: „An object tracking pan-tilt smart camera based on a Zynq heterogeneous device”, Marcin Kowalczyk, University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
Second Prize: „Retro Gaming Console”, Stefan Sredojevic, Tijana Petrovic and Srdjan Skala, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
Third Prize: „Cycling Assistance System Using FPGA”, Selma Goga and Zelia Blaga, Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania
Third Prize: “Bin Knows Best”, Andrei Bărăian, Andrei Sabău and Victor Oltean, Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania
Honorable Mention: „Rain Room”, Robert Oniga and Catalin Moldovan, Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania and Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Honorable Mention: „Persistence of Vision Game Display”, Paul Vacariu and Giani Statie, Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania
Honorable Mention: „Optimum Implementation of Improved Successive Cancellation Decoders for Polar Codes in FPGA Platform”, Ayse COLAK, Aysenur KAPISIZ, Beliz ONCU, Cankaya University, Ankara, Turkey
Honorable Mention: „Faster Successive Cancelation Decoding 2 bit”, Muge Genc, Burak Gokbulut and Anil Ayancik, Cankaya University, Ankara, Turkey
Prof. Radu Muntean, the former President of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, presented the Winners Certificates and the representatives of the organizing companies handled the awards.
We use this opportunity to bring thanks to:
The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, for ensuring the ongoing conditions of competition: accommodation to visiting students and teachers during the competition.
Digilent Inc. Company (Pullman, WA, USA), for the prizes and participation in the competition Jury.
Digilent RO Company, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, for organizing the contest and supporting the costs of hardware platforms for the students, providing the lunch for guests and competitors during the competition and logistics.
National Instruments, for logistics help.
Additional information about the contest is available online at:
http://www.digilentdesigncontest.com/
Contest entries can be seen at:
http://www.digilentdesigncontest.com/2017-eu-contest-entries.html
Winners list can be found at:
http://www.digilentdesigncontest.com/2017-winners.html
Organizer: Professor Mircea Dăbâcan,
Department of Applied Electronics,
Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.