Omkar Govil-Nair is an 8 year old whizzkid who has designed and built an Arduino smartwatch in a 3D printed case with a paracord wristband. 

Kids can do amazing things. With technology becoming more sophisticated and more accessible every day, youngsters are capable of doing more than ever before. Case in point is Omkar Govil-Nair who, at only 8 years of age, has designed and built a 3D printed smartwatch.

It’s called the O Watch, and using the Arduino Zero platform — a 32-bit board based on ARM SoC architecture — it can run the gamut of portable computing. It can calculate the value of Pi, for example; it can communicate with another O Watch for a round of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”; and it can run a recognisable port of “Flappy Bird”.

Oh, and it can also tell the time.

“Since is a fully Arduino-compatible product in a tiny package, you can do a lot more – pretty much anything that is possible using a regular Arduino board and a colour screen,” the youngster told Wearable in an interview. “You will also learn how to do 3D design.”

Arduino Smartwatch to be Crowdfunded

According to Omkar’s bio, the young maker has been dabbling with Arduino since he was 6 years old. He’s been using a PrintrBot Simple and SketchUp for rapid prototyping, and based on what we can see from his design notes, the kid has more entrepreneurial flair than someone 3 times his age.

The Arduino smartwatch (and its inventor) will be on display at the New York Maker Faire on 26-27 September. Based on the positive buzz already, Omkar and his dad have have plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign and put it into mass production.

You can sign-up to follow their progress here, and be notified when it goes live. The project will include two different kits:

• Base watch kit: Arduino Zero based programmer board with integrated color OLED screen, LiPo battery, 3D printed watch-case and para-cord kit.
• Smartwatch kit: Base watch kit plus sensor board with integrated 3 axis compass, temp, barometric pressure and humidity sensors.

We have to say, the inclusion of the paracord is also a nifty idea; kids can learn about computer science *AND* survival techniques for the great outdoors at the same time.

Omkar is showcasing what kids are capable of, and he’s using his powers for good. The O Watch is the first programmable watch for kids developed by a kid, and marks a new era of fun, educational, kid-friendly products. (via iot4kids.com)