Now in its fourth year, the EW BrightSparks programme sees Electronics Weekly partner with RS Components to highlight the brightest and most talented young electronic engineers in the UK today.

It was back in the summer that we first announced the class of 2020, but we also want to put the spotlight again on the individual winners.
Today, taking it alphabetically, we’re highlighting James Zaremba, who is studying Electronic and Electrical Engineering (BEng) at Swansea University.
EW BrightSpark 2020, In the spotlight: James Zaremba, Swansea University
Achievements

His academic supervisor nominated James due to the excellent and forward looking nature of his course work producing an electronic design, the judges learned. His task was to design a small portable computer that would be suitable for use in rural areas.
“While there have been many previous attempts at this, what James designed truly amazed me. His decision to use Raspberry Pi as the key component was predictable, but the key innovative aspect James proposed was to use a micro-projector instead of attaching an LCD display as one might expect.
The resulting prototype, which was built in only 4.5 months, is very compact, its size is 6x4x10cm. It runs a Raspberry Pi OS with enough memory capacity. The micro-projector provides a screen size of about 40x30cm clearly visible in daylight. There is WiFi Internet connectivity, and Bluetooth to connect an external keyboard. The current energy consumption is about 12W. The energy consumption as well as overall dimensions of the device can be optimised further, for instance, to operate the computer from a small portable renewable energy charger, and to easily fit the whole device into a pocket!”
The future aim is to make the design modular, so that every component can be independently replaced in case of its failure.