WearHacks kicks off in Toronto
WearHacks is an international non-profit organization headquartered in Montreal, focused on the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship in Wearable Technology and Internet of Things all over the world. They kicked off this past weekend in Toronto, drawing hundreds of attendees and bringing together developers, designers, project managers, students, and engineers with an entrepreneurial and creative mind.
WearHacks was hosted at MaRS, one of world’s largest innovation hubs located in the heart of downtown Toronto, Canada.
Tables all set up, ready and waiting for the hackers to join!
...and here they are!
Pearl and I with the booth setup...
...immediately a crowd formed around the Intel booth, all wanting to learn more about the Intel Edison and the Xadow wearables kit!
Great keynote presentation by Tom Emrich, founder of WeAreWearables and Marco Della Torres, co-founder of Basis
University students from across the nation attended.
Here we see a Xadow wearable kit already in action, shortly after distributing them...
Here is a team hacking a Kinect.
Team Medicue here brainstorming user stories and prototypes.
It’s late into the night but students continue to work hard.
This team is working on an electric longboard that is controlled with a Pebble!
Here is a teaming hacking together a RC car that is mind controlled, using the Muse headband
This team built a wrist wearable, allowing two different users to communicate over Bluetooth LE once they are within proximity
Team BreathAliver showing off their wearable device built with the Xadow wearables kit. It’s a breathalyzer wearable that discourages drunk driving and calls Uber or a friend for you.
Preliminary judging starts as teams start pitching. Only top 10 teams are chosen to move onto the final round of judging.
A lot of teams chose the Intel Edison and Xadow wearables kit for their project, it was great to see all the amazing hacks they’ve put together.
Top 11 Finalists
There were a total of 38 project submissions and the judges had to choose 10. After scoring all of them, 2 teams tied for 10th place scoring so there was a total of 11 finalists. These teams are:
Team AnyWear (Honorable Mention)
Team Medicue (Most Innovative Use of Sensors)
Team Apes In Space
Team PillowCase
Team BreathAliver (Grand Prize Winner)
Team Science Bros
Team DriveSafe
Team The Team
Team KineticKinect
Team The Wake Up Call
Team Winkers
All the source code and project details will be released on Github https://github.com/wearhackstoronto
Here is a video recap of the entire event: https://twitter.com/intelcanada/status/597846602372415488
It was a great event overall and I was great to see all the innovative uses of Intel technology in wearables applications. I wish for the global success of WearHacks as they start in other cities!