OREANDA-NEWS. MakerBot, a global leader in the desktop 3D printing industry, and GE Appliances’ FirstBuild, a global co-creation community, today announced the winners of the Third Annual Hack-A-Thon at MakerBot’s Brooklyn headquarters. Inventors, educators, students and 3D printing enthusiasts worked over the weekend on June 13 and 14 to “think inside the icebox” — to design features and 3D print prototypes for FirstBuild’s connected refrigerator, ChillHub, using the MakerBot 3D Ecosystem and Green Bean connect kits provided by FirstBuild. Six teams of innovators experimented with ChillHub to imagine and prototype new devices and features for a chance to win a MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer and two rolls of filament for each member of the winning team.

“I’m blown away by the creativity and imagination of the participants of this Third Annual Hack-A-Thon at MakerBot headquarters,” said Jonathan Jaglom, CEO of MakerBot. “From high school and college students to seasoned engineers and designers, the teams developed new devices and features that offer a glimpse into the future of the connected home. We’re excited to be part of the FirstBuild community, and I couldn’t think of a better way to showcase the power of desktop 3D printing and how it empowers students and professionals to become creators.“

First Place - The winning team, headed by Bryan Berger of NY Hack-A-Thons, was FoodShare, a new solution to display and share food from your refrigerator with neighbors. The team 3D printed food baskets and egg holders that have embedded sensors and are placed inside the fridge together with a mounted camera. The sensors can detect freshness, among other things, so there’s no pawning off overripe fruit. The hardware is connected to ChillHub and feeds information to a website, where users can set up a profile and connect to similar systems in neighboring homes. The team hopes that the combination of food and technology can bring communities together to share different cultures. FoodShare would lead to less food waste and maybe more community potlucks.

Second Place - Pavlov’s Fridge is a locked box within the fridge that can only be opened by marking off set tasks to reveal its contents, such as snacks or other goods. The system is designed to incentivize positive behavior based on goals. For example, it could help facilitate a diet or encourage children to complete their chores. The user must complete tasks, such as cleaning the house or running a mile, and check them off on an online portal in order for the box to unlock. The system could also be connected to wearables to automatically open the box when fitness goals are achieved. The team 3D printed the box and gear system, and then used a motor connected to the Wi-Fi-enabled ChillHub.

Third Place - Fridge Pharm is a storage box that organizes weekly medication and administers the proper dosage based on the physician’s input. The medication is sealed into locked containers inside the fridge until the day and time that they are to be accessed, at which point the container unlocks. A physician can monitor the box via the Wi-Fi-enabled fridge. The system will help avoid over-medication and help collect patient data. The team created the casing using 3D printed parts and used the Raspberry Pi to control the opening and closing mechanisms.