In May 2015 at Maker Faire Bay Area, Qualcomm unveiled the DragonBoard 410c, a powerful, diminutive single board computer aimed at bringing makers into the orbit of the semiconductor giant. Leveraging the Snapdragon processor, it offers a 64-bit quad core running at 1.2 Ghz, 8 GB of flash memory, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and the ability to run various operating systems, including Android, Linux, and Windows 10 IoT. This lets it easily handle artificial intelligence, computer vision, and advanced IoT projects.
Qualcomm leverages the capabilities of the DragonBoard and Snapdragon for its interactive demos at this year’s Maker Faire, utilizing a theme of “Play.” Visitors to the booth are able to face off with a 4-person retro gaming arcade rig, break bricks with a Scratch-created breakerball game, and aim for the high score on an AI-and-CV-driven dance game that uses a Snapdragon-powered smartphone to track a person’s moves and award them points (as of Friday, the top score for that is an impressive 970 points). They are also running a unique DragonBoard giveaway using an automated facial recognition system that detects people passing the booth and asks them to enter.
The Qualcomm team also hosts two incredible makers at their booth this weekend to exhibit their interactive, DragonBoard-powered builds — Saura Naderi, who built a gorgeous robot dress with discrete appendages that dance, sway, and augment hugs and embraces to help increase her social interaction. And Estefanie from Estefanie Explains It All brings her Daft Punk-inspired sound-reactive light-up helmet that pulses and modulates in various eye-catching ways.
All of this is part of Qualcomm’s three-year DragonBoard celebration. In that time, the platform has grown both with its offerings of expansion boards (following its 96Boards compliancy) and the developer tool offerings and project creations.
It’s great to watch the continued growth of the DragonBoard system and the creative and professional output that makers and developers are doing with it. We look forward to seeing what the next few years bring.
