Seeed Fusion DIY XIAO Mechanical Keyboard Contest is closed! The winners are…

Closing of the Fusion XIAO Mechanical Keyboard Contest

From July 11 to October 11, the contest lasted for three months and ended successfully. During the contest, we received around 80 applications and sponsored about 40 keyboards (sponsorship ended on Sep. 22nd).  With 33 excellent keyboards delivered, we are happy to announce that the keyboard contest closed with a resounding success this week!

Therefore, it’s time to reveal our winners! Among the keyboards up to now there are 11 winners in total, one keyboard for first prize, 2 keyboards won the second prize, 3 keyboards won the third prize, and 5 keyboards won the excellence award.

 

Award Winners

Seeed Fusion invited Tamás Dovenyi, the webmaster of KBD.NEWS, to judge the outstanding keyboards together with us. To be honest, selecting the best from so many excellent keyboards is a very hard choice. The keyboards participating in the contest are all amazing and they all have different but nice features. The judges are made by Seeed staff and Tamás Dovenyi. The average of the ranking determines the winners. The scoring criteria involve: the usability and originality of the design, quality of the documentation and media provided, available source files, aesthetics of the keyboard, popularity on social media, etc. Hereby we announce the 11 winners of the contest:

1st Prize: 

Marc Rühl – TOTEM | a tiny splitkeyboard with splay

(2x)19 key ergo split: 3-key thumb cluster, pinky splay, low profile. Useful repo and classy, unique case. Nicely documented and open source. And it’s a usable keyboard, which could be used as a daily driver. Other than that, Marc took a great effort to present his design aesthetically.

 

2nd Prize:

Christian Lo – Beyblock20 | a magnetic, modular MacroPad

Perfect modular features and fully customizable with a unique, open-source Beyblock system. The magnetic attaching feature also looks very cool.

Sonal Pinto – Purple Owl | a 60% keyboard powered by Seeed XIAO RP2040

A very simple RGB full-sized keyboard without fancy features. With innovative physical layout, it implements a scan chain (61 keys) that demonstrates the versatility of the XIAO controller. Well-documented open-source ortho(ish) keyboard. Undeniably original, cool design.

 

3rd Prize:

Shashank – KLEIN | a wireless ergonomical keyboard

Keycaps are printed and also have a rotary encoder. Open-source ergo split, well documented. 

伊藤彰悟 – GRIN Quern | an ergonomic keyboard on center trackpad

Monoblock split with IO expander. Has an ergonomic design and rotary encoder.

Yu Sanagi – Kidoairaku Swallowtail | a cute butterfly-shaped keyboard

54 keys + LED achieved by using the improved square matrix. Cool design and very interesting colored backlighting effects. 

 

Excellence Award: 

illness072 – Ten-Key | a minimalist wireless 10-key Num pad the size of a business card

It’s a wireless keyboard using Bluetooth for communication, powered by AAA batteries. Can also be used as a mouse with a built-in accelerometer.

Evgenii Vilkov – Pica40 | Split keyboard with 40 keys using XIAO controllers.

Very nice split ergo with rotary encoder. Also has wired version and wireless version. 

 

junzhe – Kretsträd | a 34 keys split keyboard running on ZMK firmware

Wireless ergo split with source files.

alin m elena – m4| a lego ortholinear keyboard

4-key ortho with lego frame, shift registers (hybrid matrix), and source files.

Julian Becker | a shortcut keyboard featuring 4 mechanical switches and a Display

Compact, highly customizable and very practical. Ability to have different key functions by pressing the touch sensor and key function indication on the LCD is a plus.

 

Winners can respectively get: 

• 1st prize: $500 USD Coupon + Seeed XIAO Pillow + Other gifts
• 2nd prize: $150 USD Coupon + Seeed XIAO Pillow + Other gifts
• 3rd prize: $50 USD Coupon + Seeed XIAO Pillow + Other gifts
• Excellence Award: $30 USD Coupon + Seeed XIAO Pillow + Other gifts

But we have to say that all the keyboards delivered in the contest are so great and we are very stoked to sponsor them. A sincere thanks to everyone who participated and made an effort in the contest! 

Furthermore, great project ideas are always welcome by us! So please stay tuned for our upcoming events and contests!

 

Licensed Keyboard:

After our internal discussions, we have selected 3 keyboards to license. Seeed will assist with all electronics manufacturing including structural parts, testing, certification, provide engineering and quality assurance services, and promotion, sales and distribution around the world using Seeed’s own network and channels. For more information, see Seeed Licensed Product Program page. The 3 keyboards below are the licensed products in this contest:

 

Shashank – KLEIN | a wireless ergonomical keyboard

 

Julian Becker | a shortcut keyboard featuring 4 mechanical switches and a Display

 

Cristian Palma | MacroBoard – 9-key hotswap mechanical macropad

 

Interview of winners

We are interviewing our winners about their project ideas and feelings, and will update here once it goes live!

 

Come and let’s explore the future with Seeed Fusion!

When we interviewed illness072 about the Seeed Fusion PCB Assembly service and he kindly share his feelings:

I have never used a PCBA service before, so this was all new to me, including the creation of the submission data and the actual ordering. I was anxious, but I was very happy when I received a perfectly working PCB with no mistakes. The XIAO series has an SWD port on the back side, which is absolutely impossible to solder manually, and I was especially impressed that PCBA could do this without any difficulty.

Seeed Fusion can assist designers with an established project plan with product development and mass production. Furthermore, we can assist with sales and distribution using our global sales network, and designers can obtain the licensing fees through sales by becoming senior partners.

Interested? Feel free to contact our customer support at [email protected] for further consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!

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