Design Challenge Prizes - What Do You Want?

Hi Nicole,

I usually do not look very much at the prizes as I do the aspects of the challenge and the opportunity to do something interesting with the components provided.

I understand that some challenges entail a lot more work than others, so I agree that the prizes should reflect a good reward for the effort expended.

To entice more participants, you might want to add more ancillary prizes so that even the people who do not win get some value for their time and effort.

A better reward structure might get more recipients to actually follow through and blog through the challenge.

DAB

Hi Nicole,

I usually do not look very much at the prizes as I do the aspects of the challenge and the opportunity to do something interesting with the components provided.

I understand that some challenges entail a lot more work than others, so I agree that the prizes should reflect a good reward for the effort expended.

To entice more participants, you might want to add more ancillary prizes so that even the people who do not win get some value for their time and effort.

A better reward structure might get more recipients to actually follow through and blog through the challenge.

DAB

Thanks all for taking the time to share your thoughts - I am so glad to hear that so many of you are motivated by the challenge itself and not so much the prize at the end of it - although I'm sure a physical "prize" is the nice "cherry on top" for all the hard work!  

I also can appreciate that the investment of time to compete in a Design Challenge is quite substantial as well - I'm also hearing that many of you feel some kind of "finishers" prize would be a good idea to keep people from losing interest and motivation along the way.   I also like the idea of the top winners being able to pick their prize.  i.e. the first place winner would get dibs and so on...

I'll be sure to pass along these ideas to our Design Challenge Program Manager; and please feel free to keep the conversation and ideas going in the meantime if you think of anything else as well.

Thanks!

Hello Nicole,

I have appreciated very much this thread as it is. Just the idea that you are asking what about prized, preferences and so on it is very nice. Another aspect that I see really valuable is that prizes are not only from Element14. I remember when for some years with Nokia as developer on Symbian, Qt etc. they always supported with something like the challenges, events for ambassador developers and so on; always (great) Nokia phones of every model !

My opinion is that a good incentive - in a general view - maybe a couple os 2nd and 3rd prizes beside the grans prix. Just to create more attractive. Then I agree with you that the prize, at least for a good number of challengers is one more incentive to finish the job. By my side, I don't participate to all the challenges but I am attracted to those that give me the opportunity to really develop a certain type of project I already have in mind. So it is the developer material that I consider the real attractive: this gives me the possibility to make a prototype or move a step forward in a project with a good sponsorship. Then, but only then after all, the prize is interesting.

Just to show an example, the fact that I can participate in SciFi Your PI is the real win. Then who really will demonstrate the best should be also the challenge winner. There are a lot of projects in this challenge that I really appreciate and like, and follow as they are intelligent, interesting and awesome. But maybe my vision by this point of view is not so meaningful as I am very few competitive and more cooperative.

Enrico

a good idea to keep people from losing interest and motivation along the way.

Christian's minions during the Forget Me Not worked pretty well to spark people's interest, and encourage good value blogs.

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact the site is an Engineering site, rather than a TV reality show.

It is important that the sponsors and element14 get good coverage of the products they provide, which encourages others to buy and use them.

In some cases the competitiors seem to be the test dummies as the products aren't quite ready for general consumption, and this puts extra pressure on the Challenge.

I wonder how wide the target audience is for these products ...

I like Nico's robotics idea.

While we have a Teachers Pet that involves a COS, I wonder if there isn't room for competitors to make one perhaps using two of Infineon's Motor Shields.

It would be ideal if it had a 'must not exceed' value, constructed using basic tools (ie no CNC machines) and have a complete BOM so others can reproduce it easily.

If you use commonly available and easily programmed controllers, you have a wide target audience, and a useful resource for the site.

Mark