Build something you can hold. This prize goes to the best project that brings code into the physical world, whether it’s a gadget that senses, moves, lights up, beeps or talks back.

What counts: anything with a physical component that’s central to the project. Examples include microcontrollers (Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi), sensors, motors, robots, wearables, IoT devices, custom controllers and hacked-together gadgets. Software can be part of it, but the hardware should do real work.