November 6, 2015 (Huntsville, AL) — Future Designs, Inc. (FDI), a full service engineering and production company, proudly announces Craig Hisset as final winner of the FDI ELI Design Contest. Craig Hisset, of the UK, was selected to win $500.00 and an ELI70-CR for his design, “Isaac’s Pi Player”.
The idea to design a kid-friendly portable media player stemmed from Craig’s desire to provide a solution that would allow his son to access a media library on the go and at home. Craig explained, “At home, it’s all good. We have everything on DVD or on a USB stick for our TV. Whenever [my son] goes to his grandparent’s house, however, they don’t have a USB port on their TV nor the extensive DVD collection [we have] at home.” Craig saw the FDI ELI Design Contest as the perfect opportunity to bring his idea to fruition.
Craig used the ELI70-CR to easily integrate an LCD into a Raspberry Pi single board computer, built a graphical user interface in Python and placed the completed package in custom wood housing with arcade style buttons. He focused on designing the device to successfully perform all basic functions typically expected from a professional media player such as play, fast forward and rewind. Additionally, Isaac’s Pi Player stores video on built-in memory and features an output port for connections to external sources like TVs and projectors. Most importantly, the final project allows his son to independently select and play movies from a sturdy, durable device.
“When looking at the capabilities and features of our ELI products, you might not think of designing a product that will ultimately end up in the hands of a two-year-old. However, Craig’s design is proof that ELI products are exceptionally versatile and can be used in a variety of end applications,” said Kent Lowman, President of Future Designs. “The FDI Team had a lot of fun seeing what the Maker community could do with ELI and we hope it will be used by more Makers in the future.”
For more information, or to purchase an ELI70CR for your design, visit our ELI Product Family page here: TeamFDI.com/ELI.
About Future Designs, Inc.
Future Designs, Inc. is a full service design and production company that specializes in transforming “back-of-a-napkin” concepts into tangible product plans. FDI offers its customers hardware, software, mechanical, and system-level expertise and a 26-year history of proven success to provide any level of support from prototyping through high volume production. Our ELI®, uEZ® GUI and ΣYG™ product families for touchscreen LCD graphical user interface and human machine interface applications are “off-the-shelf” solutions for quick and cost effective upgrades to user interfaces. FDI is committed to minimizing your time-to-market, reducing costs and eliminating your product-development headaches. More information on Future Designs, Inc. can be found at TeamFDI.com.
Contact for Future Designs, Inc.
Kent Lowman
Future Designs, Inc.
256-883-1240
[email protected]
