Our Top Members have all participated in atleast 1 Design Challenge and here's why...

I think one big one that got missed in your list jwatson was the "Internet of Holiday Lights" challenge, this was very well participated in and ipv1 and myself one first prizes, it was well participated in and well followed, oh and great prizes too, and Christian spiced it up with intermittent spot prizes along the way

the is my entry, or at least the primary entry for it

BYOB Party #1, "Bring you own Bulbs" - The Internet of Holiday Lights

this was my closing video

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BYOB Party #16 - The BIG Event finally arrives RE: Our Top Members have all participated in atleast 1 Design Challenge and here's why... Comment on Project14 | Holiday Special: Spread Mirth and Merry Through Music and LED Displays!

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I got into it as I had not entered a design challenge before and thought why not, should be fun and how hard can it be !!!!

By the end I had posted close to 18 or more blogs, all with video, schematics and code and it took easily 10 times more effort than i had initially anticipated.

It is easy at the beginning to think, oh that should not be too hard and I should be able to fit it in easily but with many of us top members as you will already know and have read above, we don't do things half measured, we go all out and while winning is not always the goal, doing the best we can to share knowledge, educate and very importantly have fun along the way is and so it began....

very quickly a few simple ideas snowballed into bigger ones, and this was one of the first design challenges where true collaboration happened too, many of us got together and had our entries actually talking to each others, in my final video you can see Jan Cumps name popping up on my scrolling light display as his entry posted to an MQTT server and shared info with mine. this was all excelent fun and I think a lot of people learned an awful lot of things from it. I know I did.

but I have not taken up a challenge since, why, because I know it will be a time sink, I have a hard time not putting in my all and I have so many other project on the go and they would all get pushed out to make room for it, it is how we are (TMs and lead community members that is) and I want to still be contributing across the board with my videos, YouTube Channel and helping out, I get a kick out of that and with the challenge it became more of a chore by the end, I committed to do it, I had piled so much into it and so was determined to finish it at any cost. I did finish it, I was pretty happy with the results and everyone who saw it through to the end did an excelent job of it.

So I have to agree with mcb1, if you can't clear the calendar for a few months to make room for it and you know you won't compromise on it then its hard to commit to enter. Road tests and the like are simple in comparison (Well I think so anyway), yes I still typically make elabourate posts and fun topics to showcase the products and spend 10's of hours on the reviews, but this challenge was all that (A product review first, challenge second) that ended up with hundreds of hours of research, building and editing

I will probably leave the actual challenges to the younger ones in future and instead happily help from the sidelines with advice and other input to get them through it. I still do a few road tests a year but mostly help with community questions etc. this to me is a better use of my time in the community and the challenge took me well away from that while I was working on it

So after all I have said of my experience, why would anyone want to enter

1.      Its fun

2.     You get free gear to help you with the project but to do better you will need to add you own to it, oh you get to keep the gear your sent either way

3.     You get great prizes, and I mean great, it varies with every challenge but in the past has been trips to Germany, or New York, 3D Printers, Pretty Good Oscilloscopes and other Test Gear so it is well worth the effort

4.     You get to learn a great deal and have a massive community behind you to help if you need it and or get stuck, you can be sure the TM Minions will always have an opinion or something helpful to say... we love to help out. and the rest of the community is there for you too so its not a lonely endeavour

5.     Did I say its fun, but if you want to win, it will take effort and sometimes a lot of it, i'm not talking about technical expertise either, though that can help, i'm talking about creativity,  Effort and originality, not copying what someone else has done but certainly building upon other ideas (I rarely post complete production projects on line, most of my efforts go into showing members how to get something to work, then its up to them to make it their own and thats what im talking about, learning from others and extending that knowledge to make it your own masterpiece)

So if your only goal is to win the prize, it will show in your work, if your goal is the journey and the prize is a bonus, that will show even more and will help you further to your goals, do something you're passionate about and do it to the best of your abilities, the rest will come to you, dont be afraid to ask for help and even share your ideas, it is rare that someone will steal it, it is guaranteed someone will help you with it.

Biggest words of advice, pick a project you're going to be able to complete, stick to the plan and don't be afraid to ask for help, scope creep and being overly ambitious is NOT your friend with these challenges

So Jane, i'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but there it is

I think one big one that got missed in your list jwatson was the "Internet of Holiday Lights" challenge, this was very well participated in and ipv1 and myself one first prizes, it was well participated in and well followed, oh and great prizes too, and Christian spiced it up with intermittent spot prizes along the way

the is my entry, or at least the primary entry for it

BYOB Party #1, "Bring you own Bulbs" - The Internet of Holiday Lights

this was my closing video

You don't have permission to edit metadata of this video.

Edit media

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Subject (required) Brief Description Tags (separated by comma) Video visibility in search results Visible Hidden

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BYOB Party #16 - The BIG Event finally arrives RE: Our Top Members have all participated in atleast 1 Design Challenge and here's why... Comment on Project14 | Holiday Special: Spread Mirth and Merry Through Music and LED Displays!

Poster

Upload Preview

Ok

Cancel

I got into it as I had not entered a design challenge before and thought why not, should be fun and how hard can it be !!!!

By the end I had posted close to 18 or more blogs, all with video, schematics and code and it took easily 10 times more effort than i had initially anticipated.

It is easy at the beginning to think, oh that should not be too hard and I should be able to fit it in easily but with many of us top members as you will already know and have read above, we don't do things half measured, we go all out and while winning is not always the goal, doing the best we can to share knowledge, educate and very importantly have fun along the way is and so it began....

very quickly a few simple ideas snowballed into bigger ones, and this was one of the first design challenges where true collaboration happened too, many of us got together and had our entries actually talking to each others, in my final video you can see Jan Cumps name popping up on my scrolling light display as his entry posted to an MQTT server and shared info with mine. this was all excelent fun and I think a lot of people learned an awful lot of things from it. I know I did.

but I have not taken up a challenge since, why, because I know it will be a time sink, I have a hard time not putting in my all and I have so many other project on the go and they would all get pushed out to make room for it, it is how we are (TMs and lead community members that is) and I want to still be contributing across the board with my videos, YouTube Channel and helping out, I get a kick out of that and with the challenge it became more of a chore by the end, I committed to do it, I had piled so much into it and so was determined to finish it at any cost. I did finish it, I was pretty happy with the results and everyone who saw it through to the end did an excelent job of it.

So I have to agree with mcb1, if you can't clear the calendar for a few months to make room for it and you know you won't compromise on it then its hard to commit to enter. Road tests and the like are simple in comparison (Well I think so anyway), yes I still typically make elabourate posts and fun topics to showcase the products and spend 10's of hours on the reviews, but this challenge was all that (A product review first, challenge second) that ended up with hundreds of hours of research, building and editing

I will probably leave the actual challenges to the younger ones in future and instead happily help from the sidelines with advice and other input to get them through it. I still do a few road tests a year but mostly help with community questions etc. this to me is a better use of my time in the community and the challenge took me well away from that while I was working on it

So after all I have said of my experience, why would anyone want to enter

1.      Its fun

2.     You get free gear to help you with the project but to do better you will need to add you own to it, oh you get to keep the gear your sent either way

3.     You get great prizes, and I mean great, it varies with every challenge but in the past has been trips to Germany, or New York, 3D Printers, Pretty Good Oscilloscopes and other Test Gear so it is well worth the effort

4.     You get to learn a great deal and have a massive community behind you to help if you need it and or get stuck, you can be sure the TM Minions will always have an opinion or something helpful to say... we love to help out. and the rest of the community is there for you too so its not a lonely endeavour

5.     Did I say its fun, but if you want to win, it will take effort and sometimes a lot of it, i'm not talking about technical expertise either, though that can help, i'm talking about creativity,  Effort and originality, not copying what someone else has done but certainly building upon other ideas (I rarely post complete production projects on line, most of my efforts go into showing members how to get something to work, then its up to them to make it their own and thats what im talking about, learning from others and extending that knowledge to make it your own masterpiece)

So if your only goal is to win the prize, it will show in your work, if your goal is the journey and the prize is a bonus, that will show even more and will help you further to your goals, do something you're passionate about and do it to the best of your abilities, the rest will come to you, dont be afraid to ask for help and even share your ideas, it is rare that someone will steal it, it is guaranteed someone will help you with it.

Biggest words of advice, pick a project you're going to be able to complete, stick to the plan and don't be afraid to ask for help, scope creep and being overly ambitious is NOT your friend with these challenges

So Jane, i'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but there it is