

A ROBO.INNOVATE INITIATIVE
Circular HACKFEST
MunicH Urban Colab
November 10th – 17th 2023
Prizes:
Total prize money of 8,000€
AND 50,000€ material prizes
The kick-off will take place in person at Munich Urban Colab. The challenges will be presented and teams meet for the first time in person.
During these 5 days, the teams have the opportunity to make use of MakerSpace workshops and develop their prototypes and concepts.
Teams will present their ideas, concepts and prototypes at the Circular Republic Festival at the Hack ‚N‘ Talk event.
Finalists pitch at the Circular Republic Festival, among which 3 winning pitches will be chosen, and awarded.
1st Prize
UTUM and Venture Labs Start-up Coaching
4.000 € prize money
10 annual memberships MakerPlus and 2 course A/B each
10 Air-Up bottles
2nd Prize
2.500 € prize money
10 annual memberships MakerPlus and 1 course A/B each
10 Air-Up bottles
3rd Prize
1.500 € prize money
10 annual memberships Maker
10 Air-up bottles
Challenges And PArtners
Further challenges and information will be added on an ongoing basis
#Challenge 1:
Eco-navigator - the ultimate office waste handling
Revamp office waste management with the innovative “EcoNav” robot! Design a cutting-edge autonomous robot that effortlessly navigates office spaces, collecting and categorizing trash bins. By implementing advanced machine vision, robust grasping mechanisms, and intelligent learning algorithms, EcoNav streamlines waste handling, optimizing routes, and promoting eco-friendly practices. Join us in creating a greener, smarter future for office environments.
Your Tasks:
- Seamless Navigation: Craft an autonomous system for EcoNav to effortlessly navigate offices, ensuring efficient bin collection.
- Smart Sorting & Grasping: Implement machine vision to categorize bins; design a reliable grasping mechanism.
- Intelligent Waste System: Design onboard sorting for efficient categorization, and integrate learning algorithms for optimized routes.
#Challenge 2:
Robot beer garden
The primary goal is the automation and application of robotics in beer gardens. For this purpose, an innovative concept and an initial prototype will be developed, which provide a functional, hygienic, and flexible system for food preparation and service. This system is intended to cater to several thousand guests with various culinary offerings. Upon successful implementation after the challenge, there’s a possibility for a functional test of the prototype at the renowned Nockherberg beer garden! In the long run, a successful concept also has the potential to be implemented not just in beer gardens, but also in cafeterias and hospitals.
Your Tasks:
- Development of a concept for an automated catering business focusing on food in a robotic beer garden
- Realization of a economically feasible live demonstrator
- Preparation of a prototypic integration into a real beer garden
#Challenge 3:
Waste-to-Value: 3D Printing meets Circular Thinking
With this challenge, we want to enable participants to identify plastic waste streams and recycle them into useful and value-creating 3D-printed models via fused filament fabrication (FFF).
Get hands-on experience on the entire FFF production chain by sourcing, making, and 3D-printing filament into new products. Explore the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) as a cornerstone of the circular mission to turn waste into value!
Your Tasks:
- Identify unrealized waste material streams with untapped potential for additive manufacturing (AM)
- Generate a stable printing filament manufacturing process for the identified materials
- Identify and fabricate useful print parts with added circular value in the context of repair, improve, and extending usage
#Challenge 4:
REWE DIGITAL CHALLENGE
- Design and implement an MVP of an open API that can be connected to the frontend as well as to potential partners, using data such as GPS location, live tracking, load, refrigerated and non-refrigerated storage capacity, range, priority and other necessary options.
- Realize an example of route & range optimization using multi drop with the shortest possible distances between customers, e.g., using a ground-based and/or a flying drone or UGV.
- Present your solution at the hackfest and its potential to use energy and resources more efficiently.
#Challenge 5:
RoboBreakdown Quest: Unleashing Automation in Disassembly
Join us for a 5-day innovation sprint aimed at transforming the way we view product repair and reuse in the context of a circular economy.
The goal of our challenge is to generate disassembly and repair instruction from product data and package everything neatly in an AR application that supports repair workers.
We will delve deep into technologies like large language models and augmented reality to bring our vision to life.#
Your Tasks:
- To evaluate different ways of creating disassembly and repair instructions from product data
- To develop an AR application that supports the repair process
- To develop a business model for this use case
#Challenge 6:
FlowShift: Navigating Efficiency through Strategic Tracking
How can we use current technology (e.g. RFID tags) in order to track items, reduce waste and develop intelligent return or reuse systems?
Keyword „optimising material flows“ and how to use some kind of tracking sensibly
Your Tasks:
- Identify technology useful for material flow tracking in unstructured environments
- Research where resource usage can be improved by tracking and tracing materials
#Challenge 8:
RE:THINK the circular Dashboard of the future
In this challenge you will dive into the world of the circular economy, with a real-world use-case from the automotive industry.
This is your opportunity to get a deeper understanding of circular principles and apply these by reimagening the automotive dashboard of the future.

#Challenge 9:
A NEW ERA FOR DöNER KEBAB -
A ROBOTIC CONCEPT FOR THE FOOD INDUSTRY
Oriens is the world’s first and only completely enclosed, automatically controlled vertical grill for high-quality and hygienic preparation of kebab.
The innovative technology enables economically efficient, sustainable and safe preparation without any physical strain.
The autonomous system cooks, portions and dispenses a predefined amount of meat. The enclosed design keeps the meat being refrigerated and hygienic.
Your Tasks:
- Analyze and design the control unit (Electronics)
- Create the brain of “ROBOKEBAB” (Software)
- Make an appealing exterior design.
- Draft a business plan and go-to-market strategy.
#Challenge 10:
BE SAFE AND SUSTAINABLE
Imagine health care devices that improve the users’ well-being and save precious resources. Develop a sustainable wearable device powered by amorphous solar cells providing energy for monitoring key health parameters. Allow users to monitor heart rate, blood sugar, and body temperature without worrying about a dead battery and wasting precious resources. Make it fashionable, comfortable, reliable, and compact.
Your Tasks:
- Dream, ideate and think about ways to use amorphous solar cells to power wearable health monitoring systems.
- Design a sustainable wearable for monitoring key health parameters.
- Use cutting edge prototyping tools and materials provided by MakerSpace and Panasonic Industry to build energy harvesting systems and test your ideas.
- Ask the right questions, break things, and question the status quo.
#Challenge 11:
RAW MATERIAL REVOLUTION - THE 7T GOAL
Join the Raw Material Revolution and tackle the global resource challenge! In this hackathon challenge inspired by the WWF, your mission is to raise awareness about our raw material consumption and illustrate the impact of achieving the 7t per person goal (currently 16t per person in Germany) . We want you to create innovative solutions that engage users and demonstrate what a world with sustainable resource consumption looks like.
In a world facing limited resources and environmental challenges, your task is to develop solutions that encourage sustainable resource consumption. Participants in this challenge will work towards the following outcomes:
Your Tasks:
- Resource Awareness Tool: Create a digital platform or application that educates users about their raw material consumption, its implications for human rights and the environment, and the importance of the 7t per person goal. Help users understand the significance of reducing their resource footprint.
- Consumption Tracking Game: Design an engaging, gamified tool that allows users to track and manage their raw material consumption. Make it fun and interactive, motivating users to adopt more sustainable consumption habits. Consider incorporating challenges, rewards, or competition elements.
- Policy Visualization Demo: Develop a demonstrative model or simulation that showcases how sustainable resource consumption policies can be implemented at the political level. Highlight the potential positive impacts of these policies on the environment and society. Help users envision a world where such policies are in place.
#Challenge 12:
PLAY SMART - CRAFT WITH HEART!
-
A SERIOUS SUSTAINABILITY GAME
Do you love games? With this challenge you have the opportunity to build a real touchable, flexible and expandable sustainability game based on an existing digital idea. That’s what it’s about: in a multiplayer scenario establish your own economic and sustainable system in which you handle natural resources wisely, trade with other players and consciously select energy sources and production facilities. But be careful: your decisions also have an impact on nature and your environment!
Your Tasks:
- Design and create a real interactive game board.
- Transform digital game mechanics into haptic solutions.
- Implement small learning tasks/quizzes that cover the topic of sustainability in more depth.
- Expand the game with smart technologies to maximize gaming experience!
- Build, learn and win!