Fourth FirstBuild Hackathon

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“My Fridge Safe”, the winning project at the FirstBuild Hackathon, is a locking drawer inside a refrigerator designed to keep medications, alcohol and food safely locked away from children.

FirstBuild, a global co-creation community backed by GE Appliances, a Haier company, brought together teams of designers, programmers, engineers, students, makers and other innovators for the 2018 “Hack the Home” Hackathon. With more than 10,000 dollar in cash and prizes at stake, competitors spent more than 35 hours ideating new solutions for the home. The winning project was “My Fridge Safe”. Josh Weil, Eric Ott and Alex Vance, a trio of makers competing in their third FirstBuild hackathon, invented a locking drawer inside a refrigerator designed to keep medications, alcohol and even food safely locked away from children. The second place went to the “Washing Machine Load Sensor” project. The team Borderless, comprised of engineering experts and makers from Mexico, Colombia and the U.S., integrated sensor technology into a washer that warns owners through a series of lights if there is too much weight, helping consumers avoid unbalanced loads while also saving water and energy from an overfilled machine. Finally, the “Multi-Dry” project reached the third place. A group of GE Appliances Edison engineers built a dishwasher handle that allows warm air to flow through to quickly dry wet hand towels. The fourth annual hackathon was judged by FirstBuild staff and the sponsors. Additional prizes were up for grabs as teams were challenged to use sponsored products and materials in innovative ways in their designs.