Previous Contests – Digilent Design Contest

Digilent is an active participant in electrical and computer engineering programs all around the world. From time to time, we sponsor design competitions that give students an opportunity to challenge themselves using our products, while competing against each other for cash and prizes. These competitions have resulted in many interesting projects, which we’ll highlight here.
Furthermore, we value our participants’ opinions, and we want to share their thoughts with the community, in the Testimonials Section of the page

Europe, United States and Worldwide Contests

May, 2018
Digilent Design Contest 2018, EU region
National Instruments Office
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
See the blog post about this edition!

May, 2017
Digilent Design Contest 2017, EU region
National Instruments Office
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
See the blog post about this edition!

May 2016
Digilent Design Contest 2016, EU region
National Instruments Office
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Check the winners of this edition in the blog post!

May, 2015
Digilent Design Contest 2015, EU region
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

See the Digilent blog post about the last Edition!

August 2014
Digilent Design Contest 2014 World Finals
Shanghai, China

We wrote about it on our blog!

May, 2014
Digilent Design Contest 2014, EU region
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

See the Digilent blog post about this Anniversary Edition!

May, 2014
Digilent Design Contest 2014, US region
New York City College of Technology, Brooklyn
New York, NY, US

Check the blog to see what happened there!

May, 2013
Digilent Design Contest 2013, EU region
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

May, 2013
Digilent Design Contest 2013, US region
Morgan State University
Baltimore, Maryland, US

September 2012
Digilent Design Contest 2012 World Finals
Pullman, Washington, US

May, 2012
Digilent Design Contest 2012, EU region
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

May, 2012
Digilent Design Contest 2012, US region
2012 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology
Indianapolis, IN, US

Testimonials

For me, the 4th edition of the Digilent Design Contest was a career-changer… literally… At the end of my 3rd year at TUC-N, I was looking for a job… and I found it thanks to the Digilent Design Contest. I got head-hunted by “some guys” who were thinking about starting a European branch for their US IT business; I’ve been working for them (Imprezzio Global) ever since and remembering how I got there always brings a smile to my face. The contest itself was a major challenge for me and of course being a solo girl to win the competition made the deal even sweeter… I wish I could see at least the 50th edition of the contest!

Agota Radoi Riger

winner of the 4th Edition of the Digilent Design Contest (Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

The biggest win I gained from participating at Digilent Design Contest was: 1. Work specific experience gained by working on the specific project with the provided hardware/software used in the contest and by facing and solving all the challenges. 2. General experience gained by doing team work, whole experience of the contest which was fun and allowed me to meet great people. The contest and the 1st prize were mentioned in my CV when I applied for an internship at Freescale Toulouse in France. I’m sure this added positive value to my CV and it allowed me to be accepted right away for the job.

Florin Cocos

winner of the 6th Edition of the EU Digilent Design Contest 2010 (Constanta Maritime University, Romania)

For us, the result of the Digilent Design Contest is a very cool project. We still use BitHound, the logic analyzer we designed for the contest. Furthermore we received feedback and questions from people all around the world who use BitHound for debugging their own circuits. It is really nice to see that our project is of use to other hobbyists and engineers as well. The contest itself, we think it was organized very professionally. It was nice to meet engineers from all around the world, it was truly a worldwide contest. Mario and I target academic careers and we both will start as PhD Students at ETH in a few weeks.

Mario Mauerer, Lukas Schrittwieser

winners of the 7th Edition of the Digilent Design Contest, winners of the first worldwide Finals, 2011 (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Besides the technical knowledge, the most valuable skills I gained by participating at the Digilent contests were team work and time management. Winning the 1st prize also helped me get a job at Analog Devices as System Design Engineer. The outstanding organizer(s) made the whole experience very enjoyable and I recommend this contest to all engineering students who are passionate about their work.

Mihai Bancisor

winner of the 7th Edition of the DDC, 2011, honorable mention awarded in the 6th Edition of DDC 2010 (Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

The projects that I have developed for the contest were my first attempt to create complex and professional projects. Many of the knowledge gained during the development of my projects have been and are helpful to my current job. I recommend younger students to participate in the competition because they have many advantages: put in practice their innovative ideas using the hardware resources offered by the Digilent team, deal with success and failure, teach that effective performance requires practice, develop the ability to communicate, both orally and in writing, compare themselves with other engineering students.

Alexandra Stanciu

multiple participant and finalist at the EU Digilent Design Contest 2011 (Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania)

Before “Digilent Design Contest 2012” my dream was to be a truck driver and to travel from one country to another because I LOVE VEHICLES. After “Digilent Design Contest 2012”, I presented my project idea at conferences in Greece, Turkey, my teachers presented the work in Spain, for me it was a huge step and I found a job as an Engineer.

Florin Corciova

participant at the EU Digilent Design Contest 2012 Transilvania (University of Brasov, Romania)

It was the greatest achievement of my undergraduate studies! The Digilent Design Contest experience was very very enriching for me, because, first of all, I have learned a great deal of things from the contest. Not only the technical things, the mathematical things, but also, the experience of the contest itself, the presentation of our work in front of such an exclusive audience was very enriching. Moreover, the fact that I won a prestigious European contest contributed very much to the added value of my applications. When I applied for the DAAD scholarship and the master at the Technical University of Munich, I knew that the competition will be strong and I believe that the great achievements made the difference. Digilent Design Contest 2012 was a great experience, one that I am very proud of and one that had a great impact on my life.

Ionut-Gabriel Farcas

winner of the 8th Edition of the EU Digilent Design Contest 2012 Technical (University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania)