FoodShare Concept Takes First Place - a Connected Platform for Refrigerators to Share Food with Neighbors

BROOKLYN, N.Y. & LOUISVILLE, Ky. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 22, 2015 — MakerBot Thingiverse, the world’s largest 3D printing design community, and GE Appliances’ FirstBuild, a global co-creation community, today announced the winners of the Third Annual Hack-A-Thon at MakerBot’s Brooklyn, NY, headquarters. MakerBot and FirstBuild have a strong partnership committed to improving the home with the help of desktop 3D printing and connectivity.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150622005938/en/

The winning team of the Third Annual Hack-A-Thon at MakerBot headquarters was Food Share, a new solution to display and share food from your refrigerator with neighbors.

Inventors, educators, students and 3D printing enthusiasts worked over the weekend on June 13 and 14 to “think inside the icebox” — to develop connected devices 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 for each member of the winning team to win a MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer and two rolls of filament.

“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 imagined and real-time prototyped 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 Hackathons, was Food Share, a new solution to display and share food from your refrigerator with neighbors. The team 3D printed a food basket and egg holders that have embedded sensors to detect freshness and are placed inside the refrigerator. The basket and egg holders are dedicated places for sharable food items in the refrigerator. The embedded sensors and a video camera are connected to ChillHub and feed information to a website where users can set up a profile and see what shareable food items are available from their neighbors. The team hopes that the combination of food and technology will bring people of communities together to share their cultures and passion for food. Food Share would also lead to less food waste and maybe even more community potlucks.

Second Place - Pavlov’s Fridge is a locked box in the refrigerator containing snacks or other goods that can be opened only by completing set tasks. The system is designed to incentivize positive behavior, such as completing chores, following a diet or completing a workout. The system would be connected to wearables that 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 medication and administers proper dosages based on a physician’s input. The medication is placed in locked containers inside the fridge until the day and time that they are to be administered, at which point the container unlocks. A physician can monitor the storage box via the Wi-Fi-enabled refrigerator. The system will help avoid overmedication and help collect patient compliance data. The team created the storage box using 3D printed parts and used a Raspberry Pi to control the lock.

Other inspired entries included:

Chiliflix — A LED display that recommends a movie when the refrigerator door is opened, depending on the time of day and other factors. Chiliflix uses the Wi-Fi to tap into a database of movies and to display an appropriate title on the front of the refrigerator door. The team wrote a script for the movie recommendations, wired the Raspberry Pi microcontroller, and 3D printed the casings that housed the screen and the electronics.

Light Snack Stopper — A mechanism that requires the user to play a game in order to unlock the refrigerator. Designed to keep children or pets out, the mechanism will stay locked until a matching game is played using a joystick. The team wrote code that randomizes the game each time the fridge is locked. The components for the lock were 3D printed.

Pictures of all winning designs are available on MakerBot’s Google+ page.

For those looking to make the home smarter, FirstBuild is a community dedicated to designing, engineering, building, and selling the next generation of major home appliances. Learn more about FirstBuild .