Design Challenge Prizes - What Do You Want?

Wow - great question - what candies do we want in the jar?

The obvious interest in this question indicates we are all very interested in the prizes and their motivational value.

There are all kinds of different motives at work in a design challenge - quite different for different contestants. It is useful to provide a range of "prizes" that appeal to all of these different motives.

For me the biggest prize is the respect of the members and sponsors, who are all expert peers, and finding better ways to express such respect is a key to increasing motivation.

If you think of winning an international design challenge as winning a world championships of engineering, it would be (is) a highly coveted and motivating achievement. For those who like to commemorate such achievements it might be very motivating to be awarded a suitably impressive trophy.

Other powerful motivators for me are the requirements to solve problems inherent in any design challenge and the chance to exercise creativity in designing solutions. So some contestants may be motivated by a separate prize for creativity, regardless of how well it works. It doesn't need to be big, just some recognition.

Likewise, it might be appropriate to have a prize for the best user interface, or the solution that most looks like a product, or the most complexity, or the lowest power, or the best workmanship, etc.

I also like the idea that every participant might get a token prize. The sponsored contestants already get their subsidy materials and budget, which usually is a more than adequate reward for participation, but you don't need to be sponsored to participate, and more un-sponsored participation might be encouraged if there were more small prizes.

Big prizes tend to be more motivating, eliciting greater effort and greater accolades, so tougher and possibly more interesting challenges can be tackled, but this also limits participation, so a range of challenge difficulties and a corresponding range of prize sizes is a good way to keep things interesting and encourage the widest possible participation.

The goodie bag of products idea is certainly motivating - having a choice of several different bags, each with different contents might make it even more interesting, while still allowing the contents to be comprised of sponsor materials.

Doug

What he said ..., for me really it is just fun to compete, the rest is just a bonus

What he said ..., for me really it is just fun to compete, the rest is just a bonus