Get a behind-the-scenes look at Opto 22's journey from render to reality for the demo panels built specifically for the Ignition Community Conference Build-a-Thon.

In early 2022, Benson Hougland (Opto 22 VP of Marketing and Product Strategy) called the Opto team together and said “I’ve got a great project for us, and you're going to love it...the ICC Build-a-Thon!”

Undeniably "the premier event in competitive SCADA," the ICC Build-a-Thon is the major highlight of the annual Inductive Community Conference (ICC), organized by Inductive Automation and held every year in Folsom, CA. It is a showcase and live competition for system integrators who use Ignition software, a platform for building industrial automation and control systems.

In the Build-a-Thon, two teams of integrators compete to build the most innovative and functional Ignition projects live on stage. Following project completion, the live auditorium audience and livestream attendees vote on the ultimate winner through an app on their phones. This year's ICC 2024 Build-a-Thon pitted system integrators BIJC Ltd. against DMC Engineering for the coveted Ignition-orange championship jacket. Who won? Read on.

What's the project?

Up until ICC 2021, the Build-a-Thons used simulated data for their competitor challenges. But for ICC 2022, Inductive Automation wanted to take the Build-a-Thon event to a new, real-world level using actual PLCs and I/O hardware. Travis Cox, Kevin McCluskey, and Kent Melville (all from Inductive Automation) called Benson and asked if Opto 22 could design, build, and control specialized panels for the contestants to work with.

In this post, you'll see the sometimes standard, sometimes unique challenges and difficulties of this project.  We've built these panels for three years now, starting with a water process in 2022, and a Galton board in 2023. For this post, we'll focus on the build process using our latest ICC 2024 model—The EPICStore, a scaled-down version of a convenience store with a car wash.

Montage of ICC Build-a-Thon models from 2022-2024

Self-imposed Constraints

Just like your own automation projects, this one had constraints—but these were self-imposed. Some mirrored real-world constraints, and some were unique to the ICC. In no specific order, here are some of the design goals we try to hit or keep in mind with each year's model. Like you, we factor in these constraints in the planning stage before anything is built, tested, or even modeled. Having some guidelines and restrictions helps to focus the build process for the best end result possible.

We also have day jobs, so we need to fit the construction of the ICC BaT yearly model into our already full-time jobs here at Opto. Time constraints to build the models must be kept in mind. In other words, nothing overly ambitious. We only build one year in advance, not two!

Front-facing layout: Available space may be a constraint for any project (especially machine design). In our case, since the model is revealed to the teams in a conference room and then placed center stage in an auditorium, we always try to ensure that the model's primary orientation faces the front so that it not only looks impressive to everyone out the gate but also allows you to see the whole model at first glance from across the room.

This is even more important on the big stage, as the camera that projects the video of the model onto the large screen for all to see is at the front of the stage at eye level, so having the models front-facing is very important. Top-down cameras have not been dismissed, but we have found that the front orientation is also important for the two days that the two teams are working on their projects in their respective conference rooms at Inductive Automation headquarters.

This self-imposed constraint is probably the most important and restrictive of all. It's amazing how many model ideas we've considered that are in a lay-flat orientation and thus simply can't be seen from the primary use angle.

Using CAD software, we model and render the model to scale so we can get a scope of work and roughly preview what everyone at ICC is going to see on stage. The next four images show a bit of planning progression that most of our builds go through. They also show the power of fleshing out an idea quickly in software, before adding more details or lifting a hammer to start building.

In the case of the EPICStore, we knew it would be a cut-away model so we could retain the front-facing view while still exposing the inner workings.

Great Lighting: Engineers love LED lighting, especially full rainbow RGB. So we always try to include colorful and dynamic lighting in our models. Lighting is often used not just to make the model look great, but also to convey information with individually addressable LEDs.

LEDs were heavily used in 2023’s Galton board build, where the light strips clearly showed the path the golf ball was taking through the board. For this year's EPICStore, the lighting zones separate the different control elements and provide an easy way to show energy usage through the power monitoring module installed on the EPIC.

Having good, informative lighting helps on stage and up close, both on and off camera.

Industrial: This one is tough because it's hard to define. We want the teams to be challenged, but they also only have about 15 to 20 minutes to understand the tasks of the year's Build-a-Thon. In 2023, we overreached a bit in this regard. The Galton board looked rather unusual in those first few minutes.

Consistency: Neither of the finalist teams should have any advantage based on which model they are given (the model given to each is always chosen randomly). The two models (or three—the third being either a spare or a curveball) must perform exactly the same. This was a HUGE effort on our part for the Galton board build.

Construction: The render can be as complicated as the CAD guy likes, but at the end of the day, the team at Opto has to be able to actually build either two or three of the units. Along with this goes the budget we are given each year—a constraint you're all familiar with—and it's nice to be under it if possible. Part availability also plays into construction. We really don’t want to choose a model that has specific hyper-expensive or rare parts.

Our in-house machine shop staff puts together the framework. Here, Benson reviews the progress of the build before the frame moves from the machine shop to the electronics and 3D print stage.

Controls: The groov EPIC is the heart of every panel build. For all builds, we deployed the groov EPIC PR2 processor (GRV-EPIC-PR2). In this year's build, we took advantage of the built-in Ignition Edge to model the CStore's tags into user-defined types (UDTs) and then publish the UDTs via MQTT and Sparkplug B to an MQTT broker (MQTT Distributor running in Ignition Cloud Edition) on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instance. Then, the competitors subscribed to those tags with their own Ignition instances and built their applications for all to view and vote on.

The I/O backplane for the models can be a 4, 8, or 16-module chassis. The I/O count is not a limiting factor; however, we need to consider the overall size and what I/O the model might require to function. We used an 8-module chassis in the first two models, but this year's EPICStore model used a 4-module chassis. In fact, it uses the same I/O modules as our popular groov EPIC Learning Center (GRV-EPIC-LC2), with one exception; we added a power monitoring module to the empty slot so we could monitor the real-time electrical use of the EPICStore.

Prototyping: An important thing to keep in mind when starting the construction (usually around February or March for the September event) is the complexity of the build. If there are going to be totally new elements, new parts, or just anything that can’t be bought off the shelf (mainly from either McMaster-Carr or Amazon), it will be designed and built in-house. This also means accounting for the time and material cost of creating parts that won’t make the final build, and the prototyping phase is critical to the whole project.

In 2023, we added a 3D printer to our arsenal of tools for the builds. Both in ‘23 and ‘24, 3D CAD plus additive construction came into play and opened up the playing field. 3D printing brings a huge variety of possible models that we can put together within the time we have—especially thanks to rapid prototyping. Waiting for a print to finish is substantially faster than waiting for shipping!

Without fail, we find some unforeseen glitches. In the case of the EPICStore, we discovered that the car wash conveyor belt sagged a little too much with the weight of the two opposing cars in the middle. So, if you look carefully at the photo below, on the right-hand gear, we slotted the mount and had a spring behind the plate that kept an even tension on the belt no matter what the position of the cars.

Secrecy: Everyone at Opto is sworn to secrecy, including making sure no photos of the current year's model build are posted on any social media sites. The competing integrator teams must not be tipped off about any details of the ICC contest. Both teams must be seeing the models for the very first time when the black reveal curtain is lifted during the event.

Each model gets two reveals: First, at Inductive Automation HQ on Monday morning when the Build-a-Thon officially starts for the two finalist teams. And second, the main reveal on center stage for all the crowd to see for the first time.

So those are some of the broad points we try to hit. We also keep some important sub-points in mind to highlight the features of Ignition, like visualization, reporting, data handling, etc.

Having Fun: We also try to walk the fine line between automating a process and providing some degree of gamification. We want the contestants and ICC audience to have some fun. But at the end of the day, Opto and Inductive are industrial automation-focused, and the models we build should reflect this. The goal is to provide the teams with an appliance they can use as a platform to flex their skills with Ignition—not to overwhelm them with core functionality they need to implement.

Last but not least, we try to ensure that the models can be used after their big stage event. Either they break down or are compact enough to transport to trade shows or conferences as needed. The EPICStore solidly fits the bill here, so keep an eye out for this model at an upcoming event!

Transportation: Part of the project involves transporting the models from Opto 22 HQ in Temecula, CA, to Inductive HQ in Folsom, CA—a 500-mile road trip. The first year's water process model took a rather large moving truck, and a lot of logistics support was needed to move the models back and forth between Inductive’s main office and the Harris Convention Center, where ICC is held.

We used a U-Haul for the water tanks, but for the last two, we used a pickup truck. It just depends on the logistics of transporting the model from Opto HQ to IA HQ.

Here are the three EPICStore models at the front entrance of Opto 22 HQ in Temecula just before they were loaded into a pickup truck for their 8-hour drive north to Inductive Automation HQ in Folsom.

Wrapping Up

So that’s some background on what we consider most important during each year's "selection" process.

I say selection, but really, it's nothing of the type. We don’t have any ready-to-go models; in fact, there is not a single pool of ideas or backlog of half-built models to select from. We always listen carefully to Inductive's ICC keynote address about what is coming in the next version of Ignition. In 2024, the talk was about version 8.3, so we are considering what we can build to include any of those new features.

We also scroll through some engineering, 3D printing, and even LEGO social media feeds to get some inspiration for what we might build.

But for ICC 2025, we'd love to hear from you! Considering the above constraints, what would you build? Let us know in the comments below.

I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes glimpse of what makes the Build-a-Thon happen. And, congratulations to team DMC on winning this year's ICC Build-a-Thon!

And as always, happy building!