Have you ever pitted your engineering creativity and skills against your peers by entering a design contest? I certainly haven’t. But I got an e-mail recently that may change my status as a guy who has never entered one of these engineering competitions. The missive was from Texas Instruments about an MSP430 MCU design contest.

As you may know, I have been doing a blog on the eZ430-F2013—a USB stick-based full emulation and development tool. Though I haven’t gotten very far with the tool, this contest may be just the thing to spur me on.

Here are the details: TI has announced the MSP430 microcontroller eZ design contest, to be held from July 17 to October 9, 2006. Contestants may submit projects ranging from practical everyday devices to industry-specific solutions that show off design skills using MSP430 MCUs and development tools, including the eZ430-F2013.

Contestants are invited to submit their original product designs along with elements including design schematics, MSP430 MCU firmware, technical diagrams, block diagrams, pictures of finished and incomplete designs or videos of running hardware. The main processor for all design entries must be the MSP430 MCU.

Judges will focus on innovation and the best use of on-chip MSP430 MCU features to determine the first, second and third winners, who will be awarded a 61", 50" and 42" Samsung DLP HDTV, respectively, along with free entry and lodging for the 5th annual MSP430 Advanced Technical Conference (ATC) to be held in Dallas, TX on November 7-9, 2006.

It would be nice if I had a specific project in mind, since the October deadline is not too far off, but I don’t. I’m sure I’ll think of something. And I hope I’ve piqued your interest, too. For additional instructions on how to enter the contest, eligibility, design selection process and notification, visit www.ti.com/designmsp430.

E-mail your comments to me at jdesposito@penton.com