Disappointed - My opinion

It might be helpful to reach out _before the challenge_ to new applicants (ones without track record). While this will not weed out the ones that really want to free ride, but it still might help (it similar to Randall reaching out to road tester after the selection was made - and it resulted in some people not replying any more).

OTOH when applicants for a challenge do bail on the actual project, it mostly rises the costs. So when looking at the "Design for a cause" challenge, 16 board for 30EUR each were handed out. When half of these board disappear without project, its about the same as when you would run a challenge with 8 boards costing 60EUR each. So the question is: would you run the same challenge under this new assumption? If your answer is 'yes', then half of the applicants dropping out would not be a problem. If your answer is 'no', then more scrutiny is needed (and maybe you select more of the seasoned applicants).

I personally dropped out of one design challenge (not an E14 one). Back then I was approached by the manufacturer running it (because I had participated in a previous one and was somewhat successful), told him I could have a look but probably would lack the time for a real project. They did send the stuff nonetheless, and in the end I did not have enough time. I considered that fair, but afterwards I carefully considered each challenge based on how much fun it would be (which includes and interesting topic and interesting stuff to work with) and how much effort (vs. the time at hand).

What I would like to know: is there a difference in drop-out rates depending on the price value? Do people try to finish more when there is something valuable to win?

From what design challenge did you drop out? Where else are there design challenges like these ones?

Took me a while to find it in my old email, but I managed to get a press release about the winner: Press Release|NXP

Back then there were a number of places with design challenges / contests. Mostly manufacturers (I did contests from NXP / mbed, Cypress, Silabs, EnergyMicro, and did actually win some prices :-), but also magazines (I remember EEWeb). But this seems to have died out a little bit - or they are all moving their contests over to E14, as this might give even better reach with less effort for them...

Took me a while to find it in my old email, but I managed to get a press release about the winner: Press Release|NXP

Back then there were a number of places with design challenges / contests. Mostly manufacturers (I did contests from NXP / mbed, Cypress, Silabs, EnergyMicro, and did actually win some prices :-), but also magazines (I remember EEWeb). But this seems to have died out a little bit - or they are all moving their contests over to E14, as this might give even better reach with less effort for them...

Thanks for checking it out. I just started doing roadtests (so far I got a single one), and they provide me a great opportunity to access items that otherwise I would not be able to afford as I live in a country with a minimum salary of ~400 USD, where importing  stuff can increase its price up to more than 100%. To me the roadtests and competitions are a win-win situation, I get access to interesting stuff, learn a lot, can teach others, and also help companies by advertising their products. I've found that hackster.io does competitions, but I didn't know semiconductor companies also do. I'll keep an eye on their competitions and challenges too!