Team Contests?

Few things I'd worry about with any form of group project.

1. One person doesn't end up doing most/all of the work, as others can't/won't.

2. One person doesn't end up doing the dregs/left overs, and didn't get to choose what they wanted to do.

3. Anything that has to be chain mailed to cross each member's desk for them to work on. That's got to slow down progress, what happens if something gets lost in the mail ?

Ideas that are more workable.

1. IoT based project with a common website/API to bring the results together. Each member could build a sensor, that way the devices don't need to be physically brought together.

2. Some form of common bus boards plug into, for instance an 8 bit bus + CE + power or Arduino shields, all the boards could be mailed into one location to be assembled.

I would think given the sort of timelines any team project would need, it's practical to have actual PCBs made up, with or without bodge wires.

I will put this here as a reference:

Project14 | Which Past Themes Would You Like to Work On as a Team?

Situations like 1 or 2 can always happen, and they are part of life. Checking the E14 participation of members could eventually give you some clues if any of those situations could occur when grouping with those members.

How components are handled is up to every group. There  are many alternatives, as you say mailing from one member is a risky business, so alternatives are to use readily available components that each member has or are available locally or from big distributors with a short delay. Its up to each time to see how they solve those issues, but I agree that project that don't require that many special/odd components are much team friendly than those that do.

Are there any updates?

Hi neuromodulator ,

We are still looking into this.   Some proposals on how we would do this have been made but nothing is imminent as far I am aware.

The number of votes in a poll is not indicative of interest level.

Polls to decide the next Project 14 don't always get a large number of votes for any particular category, but there are always a decent number of participants..

Any contest with a prize is going to interest a bunch of members.

I doubt collaboration will change the level of interest.

The logistics may make it easier or harder - that is just something to work on as more is learned about what works and what doesn't, it won't affect interest if the logistics are workable.

> What are your thoughts?

I question why we can't change the current competitions on the Community (Project14, Design Challenges, RoadTests, etc.) to allow for teams to enter and support that, rather than create an arbitrary 'Team' competition.

On the Community we've tried team competitions before (BeagleBone Black Hackspace Challenge - VOTE for your winner!  / The Great Global Hackerspace Challenge  )  and I may be being cynical/skeptical about it, I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket for a solely dedicated team competition.

Support teams entering current competitions? Sure, dedicated event for teams? Not convinced.

Supporting teams in current competitions sounds good. It would be pretty straightforward to implement that in P14 competitions as all items come directly from each of the participants. But how would you implement that for design challenges and roadtests?