First Prize
The winner was awarded a First Prize ($2,000 value)
Student Prize
The winner was awarded a Student Prize ($1,000 value)
Finalist Prizes
Each winner was awarded a Finalist Prizes ($600 value)
The challenge
We’re calling on developers across the globe to build cool embedded applications using the Ada and SPARK programming languages and are offering over $9,000 in total prizes. Why? Well, the Ada programming language was designed from its inception to be used in applications where safety and security are of the utmost importance and with the increased need for trustworthy software, we want to encourage the use of Ada/SPARK.
We want you to demonstrate your inventiveness and build safe, secure and reliable software that matters. Need some inspiration? Check out previous contest submissions here.
The TechnologyThe goal is to design and implement an embedded software project where Ada and/or SPARK are the principal language technologies. Judges will refer to this definition of embedded software.
Our free GNAT Community compiler with IDE and comprehensive toolset is available for you to use but any compiler, language and board is acceptable in your project submission. See our Resources for further platform and hardware support information. Still have questions about what you can use? Check out our submission requirements in the rules tab, our FAQ tab or post your question on the discussion tab.
Prizes
We are giving away thousands of dollars in prizes to the top 11 projects! Our judges are going to pick the best qualifying projects based on the judging criteria outlined in the rules section.
First Prize
We are offering a first place prize to the competition winner.
Cash
Student Prize
We are offering a special prize for eligible students, who can also receive First and Finalist prizes.
Cash
Finalist Prizes
We are offering a prize to each project shortlisted as one of the 10 competition finalists.
Cash
Judges
Bill Wong
Bill Wong is Senior Content Director and Editor for Informa’s Electronic Design magazine where he has worked for twenty years. He has a BEE from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MS in Computer Science from Rutgers University. He developed and sold a Fortran development environment in BASIC in high school and was a coop engineering with Burroughs Corporation. His first full time position was at RCA’s Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, NJ. He has worked at numerous hardware and software development positions in addition to being the first PC Labs Director for PC Magazine.
Fabien Chouteau
Fabien joined AdaCore in 2010 after his engineering degree at the EPITA (Paris). He is an Embedded Software Engineer and Ada/SPARK Community Advocate at AdaCore involved in real-time, embedded and hardware simulation technology. Maker/DIYer in his spare time, his projects include electronics, music and woodworking.
Resources
To start your project you will probably need some hardware. Below are some platforms that are already supported. Of course, adding support for another platform would be a great contribution for this competition.
- BBC Micro:Bit on architecture ARM Cortex-M0, drivers available here.
- STM32F4 Discovery on architecture ARM Cortex-M4F, drivers available here.
- STM32F429 Discovery on architecture ARM Cortex-M4F, drivers available here.
- STM32F469 Discovery on architecture ARM Cortex-M4F, drivers available here.
- STM32F746 Discovery on architecture ARM Cortex-M7F, drivers available here.
- Crazyflie 2.0 nano drone on architecture ARM Cortex-M4F, drivers available here.
- HiFive1 on architecture RISC-V, drivers available here.
- Learn.adacore.com, an interactive learning platform designed to teach the Ada and SPARK programming languages.
- Ada Drivers Library on GitHub for Ada source code and a complete sample of GNAT projects for selected bare-board platforms supported by GNAT.
- GNAT Community edition free download, a robust and flexible Ada and SPARK development environment comprising a full compiler, an IDE, and a comprehensive tool suite.
- AdaCore U video tutorials providing an overview of Ada.
- Ada for the C++ or Java Developer online book by Quentin Ochem.
- Ada Programming Wikibook.
It's dangerous to go alone! Get in touch with the community for general help and support using these forums:
- Make With Ada chat room on Gitter
- @adaprogrammers: Make with Ada Competition twitter account
- Ada on Stack Overflow
- Ada on Reddit
- LinkedIn Ada Programming Language group
- Ada on Telegram
For this competition, we chose not to set a project theme because we want you to be able to demonstrate your inventiveness and to work on a project that motivates you. But if you could use a hint, here are some possible projects:
- Blinking an LED (in the most reliable way :)
- Robots
- Ada on Adafruit's feather or Arduino MKR1000
- CMSIS HAL definition for Ada
- Drones and autonomous vehicles
- Self-balancing vehicles
- MQTT support and IOT projects
- Software audio effect
- Software synthesizer
- Security camera
- Domotic
- Driver for an electronic chip and a project that uses it
- CNC machines
- 3D printers
- Computer vision
- 2D/3D graphic library
- 2D/3D physic engine
- Video game
- Software defined radio
About us
Everything we do at AdaCore is centered around helping developers build safe, secure and reliable software. With over two decades of experience working with the most respected companies in industries such as aerospace, defense and railways, we build tools and provide services that ease the complex and often difficult process of developing high-integrity software. As the need for truly secure and reliable applications expands into industries such as automotive, medical, energy, and IoT, we’re excited to bring our time-tested technologies, expertise and services to help a whole new generation of developers.
Contest Status
Timeline
Contest begins
July 31, 2020 at 1:00 AM PDT
Submissions close
January 31, 2021 at 2:59 PM PST
Winners announced by
Mar 2, 2021