Australian Imagine Cup Finals 2008

We have a winner! The Australian Imagine Cup Software Design finals were successfully held @ Remix Melbourne last week. The theme for this years Imagine Cup competition is "Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment" and each finalist team really step-up to this challenge, creating cool and practical software solutions that help address this global issue.

The winners of this years Australian Imagine Cup competition are OZDREAM TEAM with their winning project SOAK (Smart Operational Agricultural Kit). Each member of OzDream Team is from a different University, making the challenge even harder. Team members Ed Hooper, Long Zheng, Dimaz Pramudya and David Brulea  have created a smart and efficient water management system for farmers.

-from left: Dimaz, Ed, David and Long- winners of the 2008 Australian Imagine Cup Finals 

The SOAK system is designed for drought stricken farmers who have limited water supplies and need an effective water management solution. The SOAK system utilises sensors to enable field and resource monitoring of water levels. The sensors help determine moisture levels, rainfall, wind, dam depth, temperature and water flow. This information is collected and processed through the SOAK application, taking into consideration, weather forecasts and crop lifecycles to create a highly efficient water management system. For example, the system will not water if rain is predicted however, if rain prediction is small or inaccurate the system will react by compensating. All these functions can be monitored and performed from a computer or PDA.

The information is presented through a rich user interface experience, using Silverlight,  combining Virtual Earth maps and Windows gadgets

   

-using Virtual Earth to highlight areas of activity

The SOAK application has received endorsement from a variety of industry groups such as the Victorian Farmers Federation, government ministers and business leaders.

 

-OzDream Team presenting their project SOAK at the finals

As the winners of the Australian Imagine Cup finals, OzDream team will travel to France to represent Australia in the Imagine Cup World Finals on the 3rd of July. Check out this cool video of what OzDream Team will get up to in France. https://channel8.msdn.com/Posts/Imagine-Cup-2008-France-here-we-go

Stay tuned to MSOZACADEMIC for updates on OZDREAM Team and their results in the world finals. I will be posting a Video Demonstration on how SOAK works next week.

This years Imagine Cup was extremely competitive, with all teams submitting some amazing projects. 

2nd place Team E-Green: The aim of the eGreen system is to give consumers information about the environmental impact of the products they buy, taking into consideration the entire supply and demand chain. Check out the Video demo here!

3rd place Team iWater: The iWater project is a smart water saving system that uses intelligent water filters to determine the level of water consumption in each individual area of the house, allowing the user to monitor water consumption and make water saving projections. Check out the video demo here!

4th Place Team Green Revolution:   The Green revolution system has designed a smart and easy to use method of accessing public transport information, encouraging individuals to use public transport and help cut down CO2 emissions by each commuter. The system has been implemented to run on PDAs and Smart Phones. Check out the Video demo here!

-iWater, presenting their project

 

-eGreen Presenting their project

- Karo